Moses Itauma: The Next Heavyweight Champion?

Prince Naseem Hamed leans back, smiles, and drops the kind of line that makes the heavyweight division sit up a little straighter.

“Moses is a million times better than them.”

Them, in this case, being Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury.

It is not a throwaway remark. Not from him. Not in fight week.

On Saturday night at London’s O2 Arena, 21-year-old Moses Itauma walks into the biggest test of his unbeaten career, facing Croatia’s Filip Hrgovic for the vacant IBF heavyweight title. Fourteen fights in, still unblemished, still unruffled, the Chatham southpaw now stands on the brink of history.

Win, and he becomes the second-youngest heavyweight world champion ever. Only Mike Tyson did it younger. That is the company we are talking about.

Hamed’s chosen heir

Hamed knows exactly what it means to be the young phenomenon with a belt around his waist. In 1995, at 21 years and 230 days, the Sheffield showman ripped the WBO featherweight title from Steve Robinson in Cardiff and became Britain’s youngest world champion.

Itauma, if he beats Hrgovic, will miss that particular record by just 14 days. Hamed shrugs at the detail. Records are trivia. Greatness is the point.

“I’m so confident that Moses is going to be the heavyweight champion of the world,” he says. “I’m so confident that he’ll defend that belt for as long as he wants.”

This is not a man easily impressed. Hamed was British boxing’s brightest star through the 1990s, a walking headline: somersaults into the ring, thudding power, a personality that filled arenas before he even threw a punch. He knows hype. He also knows the difference between hype and substance.

For him, Itauma is the latter.

“Moses is on another level to the likes of Tyson Fury and Tyson would say that himself. Tyson would not want to fight Moses and neither would Joshua,” he insists. “If they did I would say they are very brave.”

That is not just praise. It is a gauntlet thrown at the feet of the era’s two defining British heavyweights.

Fury, Joshua and a new standard

Hamed does not dismiss what came before. Quite the opposite.

“I think Tyson Fury was amazing for British boxing and what he achieved, what he did and brought to the game and how colourful he was as a personality,” he says. Fury, now twice beaten by Oleksandr Usyk, remains a two-time world champion who reshaped the division and dragged it into stadiums.

“I think Joshua did an amazing job early in his career to win a world title and be an ambassador for British boxing,” Hamed adds. Joshua, with four defeats in 34 fights, still carries pay-per-view power and global recognition.

But then comes the punchline.

“[But] I can’t compare Moses. He is a million times better than them.”

It is the kind of statement that would sound absurd from most mouths. From Hamed, it lands differently. He sees a version of his own story in Itauma: the prodigy who knew long before the lights arrived what he was going to be.

“Winning a national title as an amateur aged 11 and then having in your head all the way through your amateur career that you’ll be world champion at 21 – I visualised that. I think it’s very much the same for Moses,” he says.

To Hamed, Itauma is not just a prospect. He is a “special fighter” on a schedule he set for himself years ago.

The Hrgovic question

All of this adoration meets a very real, very dangerous man on Saturday.

Filip Hrgovic is not a carefully selected stepping stone. He is 34, an Olympic bronze medallist, and has shared rounds and risk with far better opposition than Itauma has yet seen. His record reads 21 fights, one defeat – a 2024 loss to current WBO world champion Daniel Dubois.

On paper, he is the favourite’s nightmare: big, seasoned, and with enough scars to prove he has lived at this level.

On paper.

“On paper it’s a test but I don’t think the night that we watch it it will be a test,” Hamed says, almost dismissively. “I think it’s going to be one of Moses’ easiest nights of his career and he’ll win a world title.”

Hrgovic comes in as the underdog, despite that résumé. The bookmakers lean toward the youth, the speed, the sense of inevitability that has grown around Itauma with every win. Fourteen professional fights, fourteen victories, and now a world title shot two bouts earlier than Joshua managed when he claimed his first belt in his 16th outing.

The pressure has been building quietly. The expectations, less so.

A throne waiting to be taken

The timing feels deliberate. While Joshua and Fury circle each other for their long-awaited all-British showdown later this year, the next generation is already trying on the crown.

The heavyweight throne is crowded with names, but light on certainty. Fury has lost twice to Usyk. Joshua has rebuilt, reset, and still carries questions. Dubois holds a belt. Usyk has stepped away. Into that shifting landscape walks a 21-year-old who has been told, and has told himself, that this is exactly where he is supposed to be.

Hamed is not interested in easing him into it. He talks about Itauma not as a contender, but as an inevitability.

The belts will move. The politics will swirl. The money fights will be made and unmade.

If Hamed is right, one thing will not change: Moses Itauma will be standing in the middle of it all, with a heavyweight title over his shoulder and the division asking itself a very simple question.

How long can anyone keep him off the throne?