Hrgovic wins IBF title, frowns through Itauma’s impudence to win in 9

Conquer we shall, but first we must contend,

Tis not the fight that crowns us, but the end

The End by Robert Herrick, poet (1591-1674)

Felipe Hrgovic’s victory over Moses Itauma in the 9th round of their IBF World Heavyweight title fight owed much to a stubbornness he is not famed for, conditioning he had previously only partially conquered and a stout chin. His own offence was modest and timidly applied in the early going. Winning rounds was not the game plan. Staying vertical until the second half of the Queensberry Promotions bill-topper was paramount.

The notion, the theory beneath the shellacking he withstood in those first six rounds being that Itauma would tire. Once spent, Hrgovic’s aim was to capitalise on Itauma’s lack of seasoning as a distance fighter – he had never fought beyond the 6th – and the complimentary assumption that the 21-year-old upstart would start fast. Burning fuel he didn’t have the experience to know he would need later.

It was a simple and a effective strategy that insisted only on Hrgovic’s ability to absorb what Itauma would land, both physically and emotionally, as rounds piled up for the youngster from Kent. The enormity of the challenge was writ large on Hrgovic’s deep scowl in the early going and his legs proposed he may be engulfed with the trepidation the timidity instilled. Historically, Hrgovic is casual in fights. To box strictly to orders, to resist, wait, endure while being cautious in attack doused his usual confidence in hesitation and nerves.

Itauma glowed with the fearlessness of youth, fizzing lead shots and crunching counters frequently. The precocious youngster dictating pace. Offering poise to punctuate the ferocity. When Hrgovic touched his right glove to the canvas in the 2nd it was not a crisis but it could be presumed to foreshadow devastation yet to come. And yet, in the third, Hrgovic found Itauma’s chin, twice. Heavy, looping shots which Itauma swayed out of but the impact was felt. Hrgovic is not a one punch heavyweight, but he’s a giant of a man and the Southpaw Brit by way of Slovenia noted both.

Itauma had taken a breather.

The assault resumed in the 4th, Itauma’s aggression returned. The story continued in the 5th, when I wrote “Hrgovic discovering what they all do; speed kills.” Despite his Amateur credentials and decade as a professional, the big Croat lacked the timing to punish the gaps in Itauma’s attacks and paid the price when a huge uppercut landed as the round drew to a close. Both men had fought tired in the round. Equality was seeping into the storyline, like the wolf in the woods that the reader can see but the youngster has not yet encountered.

Itauma, with Ben Davison in his corner, was still largely in charge. His mouth was open, the head a little more stooped, the search for cooler air, for rest had begun. Hrgovic was tired too and as the seventh unfolded his morale seemed to ebb. Perhaps the 34-year-old expected a quicker decline, maybe Itauma’s blows had left Hrgovic too depleted to capitalise as he’d planned. Either way, despite growing signs that Itauma was beginning to struggle for three minutes of wind between the bells, it still felt like his fight.

Encouraged by his corner to try to finish Hrgovic in the 8th suggested the wilting confidence evident to this observer had been spotted by Davison too, in hindsight it may have been the knowledge Itauma was spent. A paradoxical ‘one more round’ for the man who had won 7 of 8 on this writer’s card. Itauma set off with the last of his ammunition and pursued Hrgovic with hooks, combinations to head and body. Hrgovic rarely held and Itauma had too easily closed the gap throughout but the last of his battery drained and an operator as wily as Hrgovic knew. By the close of the 8th, seasoned bystanders sensed what was to come.

Hrgovic still needed to write the decisive chapter and Itauma, barely upright, unable to stand still such was the exhaustion he felt continued to swing in the 9th. With Itauma lurching back to the ropes, Davison feinted to throw the towel with 40 seconds left in the round, Howard Foster broke the two fighters, Davison hesitated. Hrgovic loomed in another blow landed, and another, and Foster jumped in as the towel of surrender landed beside him. Itauma almost asleep where he staggered, like a child up past his bed time.

The 34-year-old had resisted his way to the IBF title. Itauma had found that the river was too wide and he drowned in his own confidence. A remarkable achievement for Hrgovic who delivers on his potential by winning the title vacated by Oleksander Usyk ten years on from an Olympic bronze.

The Croatian now has leverage, a mandatory and demonstrated a gentile sportsmanship that belies his scowl and heft.

“I’m the present, he’s the future. He gassed out, he needs more experience. I was losing every round, I was out boxed. i don’t know where I got that energy from.”

Frank Sanchez is his mandatory. But bouts with the winner of Daniel Dubois versus Fabio Wardley 2, or Tyson Fury, if the Anthony Joshua fight falls through, are both greater pay days and better fights.

Moses Itauma left on a stretcher. Unable to stand. Time will tell whether the loss proves valuable or destructive.