The Moses Itauma hype-train has come to a standstill following the youngster’s shock defeat to Filip Hrgovic. Now, former cruiserweight world champion Johnny Nelson has offered his thoughts on whether Itauma will ever get his hands on world honours.
Itauma bossed the early proceedings against Croatia’s Hrgovic, with combination punching and output in abundance – which ultimately led to his downfall. At the six-round half-way point, which Itauma had never previously exceeded, the 21-year-old started to look tired and seemed to be losing composure, despite still landing eye-catching shots and winning the rounds.
Meanwhile, the more experienced Hrgovic grew in confidence as he noticed his opponent tiring, eventually stopping Itauma in the ninth round in one of the upsets of the year.
Speaking on his podcast, ‘That Boxing Show with Johnny Nelson’, the former cruiserweight champion noted the mental impact that the defeat will have on Itauma, but maintained his belief that the young heavyweight will eventually lead the division and become a world champion.
“The true work comes now with how he comes back from it. The true work is how he deals with it. The true work is whether he can emotionally cut himself off from all of those lovely things that everybody said the day before [the loss to Hrgovic], to all of the negative things that everybody is saying now – this is the hard bit of the fight, it’s not just about putting the gloves on and hitting the bags.
“He is going to think, ‘What did I neglect? I have got to get used to doing more rounds, I have got to get used to X,Y,Z. I have got to look at all of these things’ – that is the aftermath, that is the hard bit that Moses has got to deal with it.
“I still think that this young man is a very, very talented potential world champion but the hope with him was to become an IBF world champion at 21 years old and it was not to be. Will he become a world champion eventually? Yes, it will be, but just not yet.”
Itauma has immediately requested a rematch with Hrgovic, but it seems that Croatia’s first ever heavyweight ruler will instead move on to a mandatory defence of his title against Cuba’s Frank Sanchez, with that fight expected to take place within the next four months.
