Hrgovic is better than Itauma and deserved to win. Give him his credit

Some good points here!

However, maybe you will concede that:-

• Hrgovic came in the best shape of his career and under 240 for the first time I can recall
• He was lazer-focussed at all points and never showed any of his old tendencies to switch off / zone out / turn his back or look disinterested
• His offense was much better, and he was not doing the arm punch thing anywhere near as much, with better shot selection, a I think more effective power than before.
• All the above seems to underpin what both Hrgo and Sanchez have said about his camp and the contrast to how he was aftyer his father died etc etc

So it's possible that this is the best Hrgovic we have ever seen moving forward, and basing future fights on his showings against Zhang, Dubois etc may be flawed.

 

He didn't get bashed though. Abel said he gassed out. Haye said he gasses out and beat himself.

I concur. You need to accept the conclusion of boxing experts and stop trying to act like you know better when you don't have a profile on Boxrec.

 

Seems like you watched a different fight to me, Hrgovic, Abel Sanchez and David Haye. If you take me out of the equation, as I am just a boxing fan... the experts disagree with you.

But if you put me back in as a human being with eyes and a 65 inch LG C4 OLED TV watching the fight, I can see clearly that Hrgovic was missing wildly with his punches. Those last few he threw before the ref stopped it look RIDICULOUS and AMATEURISH... those innacurrate clubbing Dillian Whyte style shots and then pushing Itaumas head through the ropes... why are you giving that credit???

How is that "shot selection"? And how is getting dominated for the majority of the fight classed as having good "ring generalship"?

Are you blind? What is the matter with you??

Why can't you accept that Hrgovic said he lost most rounds, was outclassed and outboxed??? so why are you taking away from Itauma's contribution and assigning it to Hrgovic who just said "Thats not me"?

Itauma GASSED. Plain and simple. You are overcomplicating an extremely simple conclusion accepted by pretty much everybody that is a somebody in the boxing world and fabricating your own weird analysis "Itauma got bashed, Hrgoric landed killed blows at the end."

Err no. Didn't happen. Hrgovic got tagged cleanly as Itauma was on his way out from being gassed. Went down like a warrior.

 

The issue is clearly that Hrgovic has already been given plenty credit, but the Itauma haters and boxing wannabe fans, can't give Itauma credit for being 21 and outboxing the eff out of Hrgovic... a top 5 fighter, prior and now champion.

 

Itauma haters acting like "oHhHhH I can see things in the fight done by Hrgovic thats so intelligent... 5D chess... setting up Itauma"

"AnD iF yOu cAnT see it you DKSAB"

Errr okay... can David Haye see these things as well? An accomplished professional boxing champion... who lived and breathed and lived it some more. Is he blind? Can you guys here see boxing better than David Haye???

So why isn't he bashing Itauma the way you vuys are but instead giving him HIGH PRAISES. Everything Itauma did was "10/10"

LOL Jesus. The audacity of posters here.

 

Sanchez and Hrgo were being gracious to Itauma, Filip showed a tone of class in his post-fight interview, but I am not for a minute believing that those two weren't perfectly aware the fight was shifting gradually in their favour 5-9.

Anyways, 'don't stop believing', it's quite amusing to see how crazily folks cling to a narrative.

And Haye? always shapes things in his own image, he's such a narcisccist - he frames what Itauma did in the terms of his loss to Carl Thomson, check the interviews, it's less about Itauma and more about 'I made the mistakes but came again to be World Champ, me , me, me. What Haye says on anything don't really amount to more than a hill of beans!

I don't think an 'appeal to authority' holds much weight in this instance, but I can at aleast counter yours with some others:-
Tony Bellew praised Hrgovic 'veteran pacing' and ring IQ and noted the turnaround was gradual.
Steve Bunce noted the gradual nature of the turnaround praising Hrgo, as did Shakur Stevenson.

Fight Disciples podcast also noted that Hrgo's execution of the 'soke-a-dope' wasn't just Moses gassing but a continued increase in applied pressure to maximize the startegy's effectiveness.

A Guy Called Henry also has a decent breakdown on the fight and echoes a lot what myself and others have said on this

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check at 8.15, commending Hrgo for being present, pushing Moses to work from the 3rd round on and increasing the mental pressure, and more throughout

Not going to waste any more effort on what is obviously an echo chamber, I'm more than aware of how many folks on this forum in the RBR was seeing it similarly to me.

 

This thing is Serge you can be winning most of the rounds but they can still be competitive rounds.

Most of the rounds after the 4th round I felt were competitive.

Yes Itauma was still winning the rounds but you could see he was uncomfortable in there and noticeably getting more and more tired.

I was rooting for Itauma but even I commented after the 4th round. I was starting to get nervous because you could see physically Itauma was weakening round after round.

I don't get why people don't understand it Serge and I wanted Itauma to win so no bias from me.

Hrgovic's plan was always to get his more inexperienced opponent into the 2nd half of the fight I think that's quite obvious.

That's why I always wanted Hrgovic as an opponent for Itauma. Because he had the durability and experience to extend Itauma into later rounds.

I wanted to see if Itauma was ready and could pass the test but obviously he wasn't quite ready to step up yet.

 

This.

I'll add that boxing usually doesn't give a lot of credit to those who won the vast majority of rounds and then lost.

Moorer was way up against Foreman. Lost.

Taylor was way up against Chavez. Lost.

Walcott was way up on Marciano. Lost.

No one really gives Nascar drivers praise for being the lead car for ninety percent of the race then losing, they get told off for not understanding pacing.

The Tortoise and the Hare.

 

I get your point, but none of them lost the way Itauma did. Moorer got caught by an absolute peach of a shot, so did Walcott, Taylor was the victim of an egregious stoppage with 2 seconds left in the fight, they didn't collapse into their corner without any visible shot landing like Moses did.

In recent memory, I'd say Huni gets a lot of credit for winning every round vs Wardley before getting caught. I get that people who were sick of the Itauma hype and are happy to bask in their contrarian ways and ragebait people, but it's odd that people are pretending Itauma is not a good boxer because of a stamina issue. Wlad had the same issues, as well as chin issues, in multiple fights, and went on to become a HOF fighter.

 

Fair.

I'll add that Atlas was telling Moorer for a few rounds that Foreman was setting him up. Moorer didn't listen, so while it was a peach of a shot, there was technique behind it most people didn't see, similar to Hrgovics strategy of drowning Moses late.

 

Great post!