04/08/2026
The vacant IBF heavyweight title just got attached to Itauma v Hrgovic fight!
Moses Itauma (14-0, 12 KOs) meets Filip Hrgovic (20-1, 15 KOs) on Saturday, August 29 at The O2 Arena in London, live on DAZN PPV. It was originally billed as a normal step-up test for the 21-year-old Itauma, a chance to see how he handled a genuine world-level operator. For a minute it looked like the IBF might swap Hrgovic out entirely and slot in mandatory challenger Frank Sanchez instead. In the end, the simplest option won: leave the fight as it is, and just put the vacant belt on it.
Itauma is a 21-year-old British southpaw who turned pro under Frank Warren at just 16. He’s stopped Dillian Whyte in the first round and Jermaine Franklin in the fifth in his last two fights, and still hasn’t been out of the fourth round as a professional. A win makes him the second-youngest heavyweight world champion in history.
Hrgovic is a 34-year-old Croatian, a 2016 Olympic bronze medalist with only one loss on his record, an eighth-round stoppage to Daniel Dubois in a 2024 IBF interim title fight. He’s won three straight since, over Joe Joyce, David Adeleye, and Dave Allen, and this will be his fourth fight on British soil.
That completes the post-Usyk picture. Kabayel has the WBC, Gassiev has the WBA, Dubois has the WBO, and now the IBF gets settled August 29.
Frank Warren, who signed Itauma as a teenager, put it simply: “He’s been amazing and sort of taken the world by storm.” Hrgovic isn’t playing along with the coronation talk, he’s already predicted a seventh-round knockout and said his plan is to “throw him out of the ring.”
From development fight to world title fight in the space of a few weeks. Does Itauma’s rise actually survive contact with someone this experienced?