Frank Warren Failed Moses Itauma.

Hrgovic absolutely can beat Gassiev. He should aim for him as a unification.

 

FW is historically a very good matchmaker and judge of where a fighter is at and where they can get to with the right strategic building but he does come out with some weird ones at times. Bringing over the unknown commodity in the Colombian Prescott with 17 out of 19 knock outs to fight a young Khan on short notice was a particularly stupid bit of matchmaking, you don't gain anything from that and everybody knew Khan had questionable durability. Why would you bring in some massive random puncher from South America who nobody knows much about to replace the original safe option who pulled out? Because it's exciting? It was an exciting one round alright! To his credit years later Amir managed to defeat Maidana who was one of the most aggressive fighters on the planet but he made hard work of that too.

 

Idk he got him well positioned for a vacant title in a winnable fight. If he didnt gas out it sounds like he was on his way to a comfortable win

 

interesting to read post fight comments, especially about itauma.
about 98% of people online were saying that itauma was going to smoke hrgovic.
i had absolutely no doubt that hrgovic would be the victor..
i just loved the look of hrgovic when he arrived in london, happy, relaxed, focused and zoned in...
he knew he was stepping into the lions den, walking into a hostile pro itauma crowd..
what a night for croatian boxing..
what a night for croatians in croatia and the diaspora..
itauma fanboys, keep the comments coming..loving it
remember what all you guys were saying before the fight.
go forth and multiply with your comments..
LOVE IT!!!

 

I dont think Frank wants to pay the money to half decent fighters to face his fighters most of the time. His preferred risk/reward is pay relatively cheap opponents then bypass the next level so he can keep more of his money in his pocket.

I think Hrgovic was a calculated risk. Due to the reward being so good and he,d bypass paying 4 or 5 half decent fighters inflated money to face his much heralded prospect. He also knows Hrgovic has a history of being lazy.

He didnt bank on Hrgovic getting the finger out and putting the work in with Abel Sanchez.

 

"Too big of a step up".

Itauma won every second, of every round, even Hrgovic admitted this.

The quality of opponent wasn't the issue, Itauma dominated, the lack of experience going 12 rounds was the issue.

 

He's fired his coach. Nathan Paddison is taking over the reigns. Check out his brilliant fight vs Wildman on YouTube. The guy has 500 street fights and is undefeated!!!!!! He ran Sydney jails.

 

Warren doesn't plan and execute the gameplan. He put his man in a fight he should and was winning. Whilst building into Itauma's future legacy as the second youngest champion ever. A poorly executed fight plan and continually trying to knock out someone with a great chin with every punch cost Itauma that fight, not Warren. Itauma must be kicking himself. It was brain dead and he threw the fight away rather than Hrgovic taking it away from him.

 

He’s 21. He has plenty of time on his side. Thry rushed him in trying to make him a very young champion with no experience in later rounds. Also sounds like he doesn’t train hard enough.
He needs to work on stamina. Sometimes instead of KOing everyone, you need to simply get the rounds in.

 

From a fan's perspective, it was perfect matchmaking. A real slobber knocker as JR would say.

 

I was thinking about Dubois earlier and the trajectory is almost identical. Hard hitting young heavyweight who's smashed everyone he's faced but never been tested, chucked in with a granite chimned larger heavy. Stopped in the 9th.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but Itauma needed a test against a 10-20 ranked heavy before this fight. Going from facing 5+ year inactive Whyte to Hrgovic was absolutely mental.