There are tired fighters, and then there\u2019s Moses Itauma in the ninth round of Saturday night\u2019s heavyweight title bout against Filip Hrgovic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With about 30 seconds left in what would be the last round of this odd but completely fascinating fight in London, the gifted but inexperienced Itauma was suddenly so gassed that he seemed utterly incapable of raising his hands above his waist, let alone defending himself from the durable Croatian veteran who was suddenly swarming him with blows from hell. Referee Howard Foster rightly called the fight and shocked the boxing world.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Itauma came in 14-0 with 12 knockouts, and was an overwhelming favorite to beat Hrgovic in the scheduled 12-round fight to take the IBF championship, which had been vacated by Oleksandr Usyk. At just 21 years old, Itauma would have been the second-youngest heavyweight champion in history, after Mike Tyson. But Itauma\u2019s dominance and power meant he\u2019d only boxed a total of 31 rounds as a pro. None of his previous fights had gone past six rounds; Itauma told the BBC he\u2019d never even sparred 12 rounds in training camp.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And in boxing as much as any sport, sometimes stamina trumps all else. The storyline of Itauma v. Hrgovic unfolded much like tortoise v. hare and Ultraman vs. Zetton<\/a>. Rope-a-dope redux, for real.<\/p>\n Over the first eight rounds, Itauma was every bit as fast and sharp as advertised, hitting Hrgovic with both hands and from every angle. His punches were as pretty as they were vicious. A lightning-quick overhand right put Hrgovic down early in the second round, and very late in the fifth a creatively thrown left uppercut crashed into the 34-year-old\u2019s jaw with brutal effect. Compubox<\/a> stats showed Itauma had a 146-61 edge in punches landed through eight rounds, and two of the judges had Itauma pitching a shutout on their scorecards heading into that fateful ninth frame (a third judge had given Hrgovic one round).<\/p>\n But maybe Hrgovic\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9 shouldn\u2019t have been so overlooked: He came into the fight 20-1, having logged 105 rounds over his pro career, including several 10- and 12-round fights, and his only loss came in 2024 to current WBO champ Daniel Dubois<\/a> because of cuts above his eyes. For all the punishment he\u2019d absorbed from Itauma, Hrgovic was still around and showed no signs of quitting. You invite bad things when you let a battle-tested underdog stick around in a fight.\u00a0<\/p>\n As it turned out, Itauma had indeed done more grievous damage to himself than to Hrgovic while throwing all those punches. He was gasping for air and wincing on his stool between the later rounds. Yet he never slowed down or stopped throwing haymakers with bad intentions. Then Itauma\u2019s gas tank hit E for all to see at the start of the ninth frame, and Hrgovic pounced. Hrgovic landed a series of savage shots to the body, sending Itauma into the ropes with a look of scared desperation in his eyes. Hrgovic then smothered the young phenom with heavy shoulders and big overhand rights. Itauma either didn\u2019t know how to clutch and grab to slow down an opponent\u2019s onslaught, since he\u2019d never needed such skills, or simply lacked the energy to put that skill to use.\u00a0<\/p>\n And as the crowd, which included Oasis auteur Noel Gallagher in a ringside seat, looked on in horror and awe at what was befalling their countryman, suddenly there was a race to see if it’d be Foster or Itauma\u2019s trainer Ben Davison who would step in to save the spent phenom; Davison tossed a towel of surrender that hit the referee just as he was calling the bout. Itauma slumped to the canvas and stayed there.<\/p>\n As Hrgovic and his camp celebrated their stunning upset win, Itauma was stretchered out of the arena. Itauma\u2019s promoter, Frank Warren, insinuated in an interview after the bout that his fighter had incurred a leg injury, though the fight tape revealed the most likely causes of his immobility were fatigue and loser\u2019s limp.<\/p>\n The sweet science, however, definitely suffered a setback. Itauma is young, talented, handsome, and charismatic, though via violence more than words, much like a teenage Tyson when he burst on the scene. Hrgovic, now the almost accidental heavyweight champion, is old, grizzled, and completely unknown except to boxing hardcores. But he put on the fight of his life and has a belt to show for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n