Moses Itauma vs Filip Hrgović for the vacant IBF Heavyweight title set for August 29 in London

I hope Hrgovic will successfully use that accurate Jab, I wonder how Itauma will cope if he gets seriously hit for the first time...

 

When he uses it, I agree it's formidable. But he tends to revert to telegraphed right hands, and I don't think he's quite fast enough to establish that jab against Itauma who has a great lead hand of his own.

It'll be interesting to see if Hrgovic comes in with a specific game plan for this one. I imagine Davidson will have one tailored for Itauma to follow.

 

Somehow I assume that Hrgovic will be lighter than in previous fights to improve his endurance...

 

He'll need it. The pathway to victory for Hrgovic is to force this into the later rounds, land clean counters and ideally push to exhaust a less experienced Itauma. The biggest test for Hrgovic here will be defending himself from cuts, because once one opens I guarantee that Itauma will be throwing the kitchen sink at it.

 

I put some money on Hrgovic stopping Itauma between the 9th and 12th rounds...

 

Even Hrgovic himself admitted that he is only afraid of one thing, and that is the cut. I hope that fear will not affect his performance.

 

He tends to always finish off the right straight with a jab, even though its still a good educated jab Hrgovic has. In short - he just 'one-twos' it most of the time.

I will be attending the fight, so pretty excited!

 

It would be good if Hrgovic could put more weight into that Jab, it could do more damage.

 

He'll have to keep the speedster Itauma off of him.

 

He should also fear the British stoppage.

 

Lucky! It is on my bucket list to jet off to the UK one day to watch a title fight... so bloody expensive though

 

He needs to do something about the feints. Ituama starts feinting nonstop, and opponents just stand there mesmerized waiting for him to hit them. The second Ituama tries to go into that mode where he feint high-low a bunch before launching in a combo, punch him right in the face. Or grab him.

And make it really, really rough. Ituama doesn't seem to like it when opponents do that. Grabbing, clinching, shoving, forearms in the face, whatever it takes.

 

Itauma seems smart enough to adjust to someone refusing to take the bait, his position switching also makes it tricky to time a good shot (though I suspect someone like Usyk or Kabayel would exploit this by utilizing body work).

I don't think overly rough play will help Hrgovic much other than receive a warning/points deduction. He won't get away with his signature rabbit punching in his opponents backyard.

 

Hrgovic also stated that if he loses, the end of his career is near.

 

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