Come on brother, getting knocked down by a single shot by Wlad is hardly some kind of sign of a lack of toughness... Spinning Joshua recovering and winning that fight into a negative is kind of crazy... Itauma for certain would not have recovered from that situation, seeing as how he was rendered useless without getting knocked down like that..
Huge difference between chin and gassing out and getting stopped. Watch Vlad vs. Lamon Brewster. He was cooked before Brewster put a few punches together. Moses demolishes any version of Joshua. Would bet the house on it. Look at what Ruiz did to a prime Joshua.
Itauma just lost to a guy who still has more to prove before your consider him getting into Joshua's top 5... So the automatic thought is there's no way. But even though Joshua's fragility, especially in his prime, is generally exaggerated... He was never quite Hrgovic solid in the chin department. At the same time, his power is way beyond Hrgovic's. It's the sort of fight where a glass cannon like Itauma would have a chance... But it wouldn't be at all surprising if he got dominated when you crank the levels up higher against him.
Yeah, I've been thinking along similar lines... Many seem to be forgetting that he just lost the first time he fought a top fighter.... and that top fighter is one who has basically disappointed every time he has fought another top fighter himself..
We don't even know how good Itauma's chin is. Hrgovic is slow as **** and not a big puncher, but was still able to find him often enough and was buzzing him. He got buzzed by that Ameribum he fought too. joshua is not only a bigger puncher, but way faster. Joshua could find him. Joshua's chin in his prime wasn't that bad, but it was shaky. Itauma was already tired by round 3, so if he didn't get him out early, Joshua would have probably gotten a KO sooner than Hrgovic.
Prime AJ got knocked down 4x by Ruiz. I'd wager Itauma can hit harder than Ruiz can, and can throw punches just as fast. Whether or not Itauma would survive a flush shot from AJ is up for debate though, but his chin looked solid enough so far.