He was the same age as them (17-18) and they looked like grown men During his dominant gold-medal run at the 2022 EUBC Youth European Boxing Championships Moses Itauma was 17 years old, and his opponents were also 17 or 18 years old. The tournament was held in Sofia, Bulgaria, from April 14 to April 21, 2022. Because Itauma was born on December 28, 2004, he competed as a 17-year-old before turning 18 later that year. Per the EUBC (European Boxing Confederation) regulations, the Youth category strictly mandates that all competitors must be 17 or 18 years old (specifically born in the years 2004 or 2005 for the 2022 tournament).
He was fighting kids. There isn't a comparison between him fighting Junior Championships against teenagers when you look at who others were fighting in their last amateur fights - usually in the Olympics. It's not remotely the same. Nearly all his amateur fights came against 12-17-year-olds. Not grown men. Certainly not world-class amateurs. Lewis and Bowe's last amateur fights were against EACH OTHER in the Olympic Final. Joshua's, Usyk's, Wilder's, Hrgovic's, etc., last amateur fights were all Olympic medal fights against experienced world-ranked amateur vets. The European tournament you keep bringing up that Itauma dominated came against kids who basically quit after that and haven't boxed in years. It's not the same.
Not the same as what I'm specifically referring to one major tournament where he as a 17 y/o who was almost 18 not only stopped all his 17-18 y/o opponents but did so in a round. That's not normal. If it is let's see your list of other HWs who've done the same at a major youth tournament? He's been beating up grown men since he was a kid Aged 11 to 12: Fellow heavyweights like Jeamie "TKV" Tshikeva recalled a young Itauma weighing around 75–80kg (12 stone) stepping into the ring against a 25-year-old man. Itauma completely dominated the session, leaving onlookers shocked. The Body Shot Knockouts: His older brother, Karol Itauma, revealed on The Sun's No Gloves Lost show that a 12-year-old Moses would regularly share a ring with fully grown adults and "drop them with a single body shot" School Uniform Sparring at 15: By the time he was 15, he was brought in to spar cruiserweight world champion Lawrence Okolie. Okolie admitted he initially thought it would be a "rest round," but Itauma hit him so hard with a counter jab and body shots that Okolie couldn't concentrate for the rest of the day, calling it one of the toughest spars of his life He's been bashing up world champions and top 10 HWs in the gym or holding his own with them while he was still in school or 16, 17 and 18.
eh, when Tyson was older and slower, with his technique pretty degraded, he was still scoring one punch KDs and KOs. evidence would suggest he really was naturally heavy handed.
Makes me wonder how he's already lost. To be honest sparring stories are basically fairy tales. And theres been more than a few gym legends whose career in the professional arena fell far short of the myth around them. Itauma is a definite wait and see as of now.
I’m not sure an inability to knock out Hrgovic means anything. George Foreman and Mike Tyson couldn’t knock out Evander Holyfield. Lennox Lewis couldn’t knock out Ray Mercer. some dudes have granite bricks for heads and their feet glued to the canvas.
Yes he was heavy handed. I never said he wasn't. His effectiveness diminished greatly when his speed and athleticism left him though. Watch the Brian Nielsen fight as an example of this.
Overrated. You have to sit down on some of that stuff, like Abel Sanchez said Itauma can't throw a correct punch. I saw the light after the fight. I picked Itauma going in for his speed, not his power. But, really, I have to hand it to Tyson Fury.. he went against the grain and said Itauma didn't have the experience (I don't think he mentioned Itauma's punch technique, though). Hats off to Tyson Fury there.
Fury also said last year sometime that boxing was a young man's game and that Moses would clean out him, Usyk, and all the other established vets of the division. The man chats a lot of waffle. I do agree that Itauma's power isn't really anything to write home about. He's got phenomenal hand speed that requires him to redline himself to keep up. Once he gets tired, whatever dangers he posed rapidly start falling off a cliff. I don't think he truly bothered Hrgovic with anything he was throwing after about the 5th round. He mistakenly thought he'd hurt Hrgovic in the 8th and then finally emptied the tank for good, but he accomplished nothing there.
You're not wrong. I just wanted wanted to give Fury some credit for the first time in years.. because I did pick Itauma to win.
I dunno, could it be the often embittered Holmes, who was so contemptuous of Tyson before they fought, & suffered a bit of a humiliating, first & only time being KOed defeat, was not honest here? Yes Tyson did not hit as hard as the absolute Monsters then: Bonehugger, Bruno & Ruddock he faced 5 times total. But he stll hit very hard, & I am skeptical that Norton hit as hard.
I think he is and I don't believe for a second they didn't train for a long fight or either he, his training team, or Queensberry would've allowed him not to do so or taken such a stupid risk not doing so. It was a combination of factors which made his gas: I think he tried too hard to get Hrgovic out of there, can't sustain that pace throwing full power bombs like that at 240lbs, Hrgovic keeping it long and making him miss and fall short more than we're being lead to believe, making him work when he tried to take breaks, having good success of his of his own from round 3 onward, and Hrgovic planting seeds of doubt in his mind telling him he would be able take his best shots and was going to drag him into deep waters and drown him and then the anxiety of Hrgovic's words coming to pass and exactly that happening during the fight. And of course Hrgovic cracking and hurting him with big body shots and landing plenty of big shots of his own in those final rounds