Moses Itauma ‘Still Trying to Accept’ Filip Hrgovic Loss

In conversation with The Ring Magazine, Itauma admitted that he has been having a hard time coming to terms with the loss.

“Even now I’m still trying to accept the fact that I lost. My take after the fight was from the experience and preparation I had and what I knew, tried my best and fell short to the more experienced man. So what do you want me to do? I gave it my all and didn’t win that night. We go back to the drawing board, we assess it and we move on,” he said.

Itauma had a very good chance of beating Hrgović, and for eight rounds it looked like he was going to do exactly that. Going into the fight, Itauma was the heavy favourite. But what made the result so shocking was not that Hrgović outboxed him; he didn’t. Itauma was brilliant early, using his speed, southpaw angles and combinations to repeatedly beat the far more experienced Croatian to the punch. He even dropped Hrgović in the second round and was comfortably ahead on all three scorecards after eight rounds; two judges had given Itauma all eight rounds, including a 10-8 second.

Then the fight completely flipped. Itauma had spent eight rounds fighting at an extraordinary pace, and in the ninth his gas tank simply emptied. His legs went, his punches slowed, and Hrgović, who had spent much of the fight absorbing punishment without breaking, suddenly looked like the fresher man.

“When I caught him with my best shot and he kept coming forward I didn’t feel any type of way about it. I just thought that if he’s going to take my best shot, I’ll try again. We kept trying until my body kinda gave up on me. That was it,” he said. “I watched it back two or three times. I just get annoyed every time I watch it. The best way to describe it is that I’m gutted.”

“I’d Rather Be Third”

According to Itauma, he wouldn’t have been as affected had he lost one of his earlier (and apparently smaller) fights. He said that almost tasting victory and then losing it broke him completely after the fight.

“I’ll always say I’d rather be third than second because in third you know you couldn’t have won but when you’re second you knew that it was there for you. That’s what I’m going through right now,” he said. “I shoulda, woulda, coulda been first but I’m 21, 16 fights in and I’m very much coming into the mid stage of my career and I’ve fought for a world title already. Hopefully, in the mid and back end of my career, obviously I’ll pick up a world title and other things.”