Filip “El Animal” Hrgović, 34, was born in Zagreb, Croatia, stands 6’6”, and brought a 20-1 record with 15 knockouts into the ring. A bronze medalist at the 2016 Olympics, Hrgović had fought considerably better opposition and suffered his only professional defeat against Daniel Dubois in 2024, when severe cuts caused the referee to stop the fight. Hrgović never developed the aura surrounding Itauma, but anyone familiar with his career knew that he sports experience and a formidable set of titanium whiskers.

Itauma dominated the first six rounds and won the seventh and eighth, even as his stamina began to wane. Itauma was faster, sharper and more explosive than the veteran Croatian. But by the end, Hrgović looked like the man who understood something the extraordinarily talented Itauma hadn’t learned yet: a twelve-round heavyweight championship fight requires considerably more than speed and power.

For most of the fight, Itauma’s searing southpaw combos before Hrgović could respond created a looming problem. Itauma repeatedly beat the older Croat to the punch and dropped him in the second round (not a significant knockdown; it looked like a slip, but a knockdown nevertheless). Itauma maintained control through most of the first half of the fight and landed enough clean power punches to stop many other heavyweights.

Near the end of the fifth round, Itauma landed a monstrous left uppercut directly on Hrgović’s chin. Hrgović’s head snapped backward, but he remained on his feet and returned to his corner. Shades of Vitali Klitschko walking right through a murderous Lennox Lewis uppercut back in 2003.

Itauma ultimately landed 124 power punches in the fight at an extraordinary 50.8 percent rate. However, Hrgović continued to absorb them. His Chuvalo-esque chin not only preserved his consciousness—it gave him enough time to exploit his advantages in experience, stamina and patience.

Meanwhile, Itauma began to show signs of fatigue surprisingly early. By the fourth or fifth round, he was breathing heavily through his mouth and persisted in throwing haymakers with alacrity. Hrgović noticed it as well. After the fight, he explained that Itauma’s open mouth and heavy breathing told him the younger fighter had expended too much energy, and Hrgović was convinced his opportunity would arrive later in the fight as long as he withstood the early assault.

Itauma’s punch statistics provide another clue as to the loss: not using the jab effectively enough. He landed 163 of 416 punches overall, an excellent 39.2 percent, and his 124-of-244 performance on power punches produced a 50.8 percent connect rate. But his jab produced far less impressive results. Itauma landed only 39 of 172 jabs, or 22.7 percent, against an opponent who had already demonstrated that power punches alone would not make him disappear.

The jab remains the most important punch in boxing. A good jab does far more than score points or prepare a right hand. It controls distance, interrupts an opponent’s attack, establishes rhythm and allows a fighter to work without committing his entire body to every punch. For a young heavyweight who had never fought beyond six professional rounds, a consistent jab could have allowed Itauma to conserve energy while continuing to control Hrgović. Instead, he repeatedly sought to hurt a man who had already demonstrated a Herculean capacity to absorb abuse.

By the eighth round, the transformation became difficult to comprehend. Itauma had suffered no terrible cut and remained on his feet, but the fighter who had moved so quickly and punched so sharply during the early rounds now staggered around the ring like a drunken sailor. Despite the accumulated artillery of Hrgović, Itauma increasingly looked like the fighter who had taken the greater physical toll.

Then the ninth round KO. Itauma’s accumulated fatigue and punishment were the cause; his collapse did not result from a single blow. But Hrgović did land a vicious right hand to the body that visibly affected Itauma, and from that point Itauma was finished. The younger man had little left with which to defend himself as Hrgović attacked, and referee Howard Foster stopped the fight at 2:27 of the ninth while Itauma’s corner simultaneously threw in the towel. Hrgović had become Croatia’s first heavyweight world champion and improved his record to 21-1 with 16 knockouts.

The loss revealed three areas Itauma must improve if he hopes to fulfill the extraordinary expectations that preceded Saturday night’s fight: cardio, jab and patience. Those deficiencies overlap. Better conditioning will allow Itauma to retain his speed later in fights, a more effective jab will permit him to control opponents without constantly expending the energy required for power combinations, and greater patience should prevent him from trying to force a knockout against an opponent who refuses to cooperate. Hrgović himself recognized the problem and said afterward that Itauma possessed exceptional ability but needed more experience.

Boxing fans have a tendency to bury highly touted prospects after their first defeat. Itauma will undoubtedly encounter some of that now. Heavyweight history, however, provides two examples of why one disastrous night need not define a young fighter’s career. In 1998, an undefeated 22-year-old Wladimir Klitschko entered the ring against Ross Puritty with enormous expectations surrounding his future. Klitschko controlled much of the fight, expended too much energy trying to stop a durable opponent, exhausted himself, and suffered an eleventh-round stoppage.

Many people wrote Klitschko off after the Puritty loss, and later stoppage defeats against Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster intensified questions about whether he could ever fulfill his potential. Klitschko eventually answered those questions rather emphatically. He learned to pace himself, developed one of the finest jabs in heavyweight history and acquired the patience necessary to use his physical gifts over the course of a long fight. He eventually established himself as one of the outstanding champions of his generation.

Lennox Lewis provides another example. Oliver McCall stopped him in the second round in 1994, and Hasim Rahman knocked him out in the fifth round in 2001. Lewis avenged both losses and went on to establish himself as one of the greatest heavyweight champions in boxing history.

Itauma has a long row to hoe before anyone can compare him to Lewis or Klitschko, and nothing guarantees that he will make the necessary adjustments. But Itauma remains only 21 years old, and the first six rounds against Hrgović demonstrated why so many boxing fans were excited about him in the first place. Few 242-pound heavyweights possess his hand speed, his southpaw stance creates additional problems, and a 50.8 percent connect rate on power punches against a fighter as durable as Hrgović hardly suggests an absence of championship-level ability. What Itauma lacked Saturday night were the less spectacular qualities that often separate gifted contenders from heavyweight champions.

A really fun fight to watch.