{"id":869903,"date":"2026-08-24T16:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T16:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/869903\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T16:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T16:56:08","slug":"joe-joyce-predicts-moses-itauma-vs-hrgovic-after-sharing-the-ring-with-both-another-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/869903\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Joyce predicts Moses Itauma vs Hrgovic after sharing the ring with both: “Another level”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having previously sparred Moses Itauma<\/a> and lost to Filip Hrgovic<\/a>, heavyweight veteran Joe Joyce has considered how their upcoming showdown might unfold.<\/p>\n

The pair will collide at London\u2019s O2 Arena this Saturday, with Itauma bidding to become the youngest world heavyweight champion since Mike Tyson dethroned Trevor Berbick in 1986.<\/p>\n

Standing in his way of the vacant IBF title, however, is highly-rated contender Hrgovic, whose only professional defeat came against Daniel Dubois in 2024.<\/p>\n

Back then, the Croatian had arguably built a slight lead before getting stopped on cuts in round eight, with Dubois subsequently scoring a fifth-round finish over Anthony Joshua.<\/p>\n

Hrgovic is therefore expected to provide an acid test for Itauma, who comes off an emphatic fifth-round stoppage of Jermaine Franklin<\/a> in March.<\/p>\n

The winner of their contest must then face mandatory challenger Frank Sanchez<\/a>, another top contender who could present Itauma with an even greater challenge.<\/p>\n

As for the task at hand, though, Olympic silver medallist Joyce has told talkSPORT<\/a> that he is backing his fellow Brit to emerge victorious.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a great test, because Hrgovic has been in the game [for a long time]. He\u2019s still relatively young [34], he\u2019s tough [and he\u2019s] got a great coach, Abel Sanchez, who I\u2019ve obviously worked with before.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think Moses is on another level and beats him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joyce sparred Itauma ahead of his first encounter with Zhilei Zhang, who defeated \u2018The Juggernaut\u2019 with a brutal sixth-round stoppage in 2023.<\/p>\n

The Londoner then went on to face Hrgovic last year, suffering a unanimous decision loss after \u2018El Animal\u2019 was drafted in as a late replacement for Dillian Whyte.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having previously sparred Moses Itauma and lost to Filip Hrgovic, heavyweight veteran Joe Joyce has considered how their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-869903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}