Moses Itauma came up short in his quest for greatness on Saturday, suffering the first defeat of his career. Now, one Hall of Famer has urged the 21-year-old to part ways with his training team, led by Ben Davison, blaming poor preparation for the loss.
Itauma was outclassing Filip Hrgovic early on in their vacant IBF heavyweight title bout at the weekend, looking to be too sharp and too smart for his Croatian dance partner from the get-go.
However, it soon became clear that Itauma was running out of steam and that his gas tank was inferior to the experienced underdog Hrgovic, who was able to pounce on the vulnerable youngster in round nine and close the show.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, two-division world champion Tim Bradley, who was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2023, told Itauma to ditch Davison and his coaching team for ‘not getting him ready for the fight’.
“Your team is wack. Moses Itauma, fire your damn team, they didn’t have you ready for this s**t. They didn’t have you ready mentally, they didn’t have you ready tactically, at all. Yeah, they had some technical s**t that you had to do, you could have handled that yourself, but they didn’t get you ready.
“Conditioning-wise, physically, they didn’t get you ready at all, s**t! You weren’t six rounds, you weren’t going nine rounds, you were going 12 hard rounds. People were saying, ‘oh, he is inexperienced, he has only been six rounds’, bulls**t.
“Heavyweights get ready inside of the gym, most fighters get ready inside of the gym. When I first started doing training and boxing professionally, I’m running five to eight miles, I am going four rounds but I am building for that 12 rounds – that is how you train, you build for the long haul.”
Bradley then went on to advise Itauma on how he should prepare moving forward, suggesting that the 21-year-old should train with four-minute rounds in order to build up his stamina.
“Adopt them four-minute rounds, bro, it will show you how to damn pace yourself. Four-minute rounds ain’t no joke, 30 seconds rest, that is what you have got to do to get your s**t ready.”
“His corner was sorry as hell too. Your preparation was trash for this fight, straight up trash, throw that s**t in the trash, bro. You need a whole new team, they failed you, you have got too many yes-men around you.”
Itauma has already requested a rematch with Hrgovic, but it seems as though the latter will instead be made to take on Cuba’s Frank Sanchez in his first defence of the heavyweight throne.
