Heavyweight Itauma handed harsh world-title lesson

Moses Itauma was still a schoolboy when he would turn up at boxing gyms in his uniform and give seasoned professionals a hiding.

On Saturday night at the O2 Arena, the 21-year-old was finally given an education, as the Briton ran out of gas and the granite experience of Filip Hrgovic carried the Croatian to the vacant IBF heavyweight title.

The referee waved off the fight as Itauma's corner threw in the towel in the ninth round. But for long spells, Itauma was the quicker, sharper and more assured fighter, repeatedly finding Hrgovic with the left hand and showing exactly why so many inside boxing believe he has the tools to reach the very top.

Yet what made the contest so compelling was the growing sense that, even while Itauma was winning rounds, he was drifting closer to defeat.

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His mouth opened in search of air and the spring disappeared from his legs. Hrgovic, hardened by the kind of difficult nights Itauma had never experienced, simply stayed there and waited for the younger man's body to betray him.

The sight afterwards was a sobering one as Itauma - who suffered a first defeat in his 15th pro fight - left the arena on a stretcher.

But the remarkable night should not be remembered as the moment Itauma was exposed as incapable of operating at world level - his boxing showed the opposite.

What it exposed was the difference between possessing world-level talent and having the conditioning, experience and ring craft required to manage a 12-round world-title fight.

It would be too simplistic - and unfair - to say Hrgovic won the fight purely through mind games, but the 34-year-old had succeeded in making the build-up uncomfortable.

Hrgovic spent fight week repeatedly attacking Itauma's age, dismissing him as "just a kid". As the week wore on, Itauma looked increasingly irritated and eventually lost his composure at the weigh-in, shoving Hrgovic before the Croatian responded with a slap.

Itauma prides himself on being unusually cerebral for a heavyweight. He reads psychology and self-help books, talks openly about sharpening his mind and appears to spend far more time analysing himself than most 21-year-olds.

But there is always a danger that deep thinking becomes overthinking, something Anthony Joshua has been accused of repeatedly during the latter stages of his career.

Whether the pre-fight barbs played any part or not, Itauma's gameplan once the bell rang was clear; he wanted to end the night early.