Filip Hrgovic Becomes Croatia's First Heavyweight Champion
Filip Hrgovic ripped up the script at London’s O2 Arena, flattening the hype and seizing history for himself.
The 34-year-old Croatian walked out as the undercard to a coronation and left as the first heavyweight world champion in his country’s history, stopping 21-year-old prodigy Moses Itauma in the ninth round to claim the vacant IBF title. Itauma, who had arrived chasing Mike Tyson’s record as the second-youngest heavyweight world champion in history, instead left on a stretcher and was taken to hospital.
It was brutal. It was gripping. And it was a lesson.
A dream start for Itauma
For three, four rounds, this looked like the night the division would be handed to a new generation.
Itauma started fast, sharp and fearless. The southpaw jab snapped Hrgovic’s head back, the straight left hand kept finding its target, and the British heavyweight looked like he belonged on this stage from the opening bell. In the second, he broke through with a right hook that forced Hrgovic to take a standing eight count, the O2 roaring as the favourite sensed a statement win.
By the end of the fifth, the arena was on its feet again. Itauma ripped in a powerful uppercut that jolted Hrgovic and sent a surge of belief through the crowd. The older man looked under siege, his face marked, his title hopes teetering.
But he did not fold. He endured.
Hrgovic drags him into deep water
This is where the fight changed.
Itauma had never been beyond six rounds as a professional. Hrgovic knew it. He absorbed the punishment, took the clean shots, and kept walking forward. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the tempo shifted.
The pace that Itauma had set began to betray him. His feet lost their snap. His work rate dipped. The snap in his combinations dulled as Hrgovic, seasoned and stubborn, started landing heavier, more telling blows of his own.
By the seventh and eighth, the young contender’s body language told its own story. The legs weren’t there in the same way. His movement, so fluid early, stiffened. Every exchange now looked like a trade he could no longer afford.
Promoter Frank Warren later revealed Itauma had suffered a leg injury, which may explain those late-round mobility problems. Inside the ropes, though, Hrgovic saw only a fading opponent and a title within reach.
The finish and the fear
The ninth round was all menace.
Hrgovic, sensing a man on the brink, poured it on. Itauma’s legs betrayed him more than once, his balance slipping as he tried to ride out the storm. Each right hand from the Croatian champion-elect seemed to drain another ounce of resistance.
The pressure finally told. Referee Howard Foster stepped in to halt the contest as Itauma’s trainer, Ben Davison, hurled in the towel, the corner unwilling to let their young charge take another second of punishment.
The drama did not end with the bell. Concern swept around the O2 as Itauma was placed on a stretcher and taken from ringside to hospital, a sobering image on a night that had begun with talk of records and destiny.
Respect from the new champion
Hrgovic, now IBF heavyweight champion and no longer defined by his 2024 defeat to Daniel Dubois in their interim title bout, stood in the ring as a man who had finally delivered on his own long-touted promise.
“I don’t know from where I got energy in that (ninth) round,” he admitted afterwards. “It was really not my strength. It was Holy Spirit.”
He could have gloated. He didn’t. Instead, he underlined exactly what Itauma had shown in defeat.
“I’m the present, and he’s definitely the future,” Hrgovic said. “He’s an amazing fighter. He’s one of a kind. He’s the best I’ve been in a ring with, but he needed more experience.
“I felt the pace of the fight. I knew I was losing rounds, but I knew that I had that pace in my favour. He was gassing out.”
On a night that shattered Itauma’s unbeaten record, the new champion still saw a rival he expects to see again.
What comes next
For Hrgovic, the path is clear and ambitious. The IBF belt is finally his, and his eyes are already on unification. Inside the ring after the fight, he spoke with WBC champion Agit Kabayel and publicly called for that showdown, a clash that would push him straight into the heart of the heavyweight landscape.
Frank Warren also floated Frank Sanchez as a potential next opponent, the Cuban having accepted step-aside money to allow this title fight to go ahead. Sanchez waits, Kabayel looms, and Hrgovic suddenly finds himself holding leverage he has chased for years.
As for Itauma, the night that was supposed to launch him alongside Tyson instead gave him something far harsher: the reality of elite heavyweight boxing. A first loss. A hospital trip. Questions about his leg and his stamina, and about how quickly a 21-year-old should be moved in a division where one mistake can end everything.
Hrgovic leaves London as a world champion, his reputation restored and his name etched into Croatian sporting history. Itauma leaves with his aura dented but his talent confirmed in the eyes of the man who beat him.
The belt has found its owner for now. The real intrigue is whether, when Itauma returns, he comes back as the cautionary tale of a rush gone wrong—or the hardened contender this painful night might yet create.
