Moses Itauma set to fight Filip Hrgovic for vacant IBF title, Frank Sanchez paid to step aside

Moses Itauma will take on Filip Hrgovic for the vacant IBF heavyweight title on August 29 at The O2 Arena in London.

Itauma, who is ranked 3rd and has a professional record of 14-0 (12 KOs), had been ordered by the sanctioning body to face leading IBF contender Frank Sanchez after the fight with Hrgovic had been signed and announced already.

However, with the Croatian rated fourth by the organisation, the fight has been agreed on the condition that the winner faces Sanchez in their first defence.

“We paid [Sanchez] some money,” promoter Frank Warren told the BBC. “We said whoever wins the fight, you’re not losing out and you’ll get the opportunity to fight for the title against the winner.”

The 34-year-old Cuban, 26-1 (19 KOs), had earned mandatory status with the IBF by stopping Richard Torrez Jnr in two rounds in May.

Hrgovic, 20-1 (15 KOs), is on a three-fight win streak, defeating Joe Joyce, David Adeleye and Dave Allen and is regarded as 21-year-old Itauma’s toughest opponent to date.

Presuming Itauma-Hrgovic isn’t a draw, it means that Warren’s Queensberry Promotions, who manage both Itauma and Hrgovic, as well as WBC champion Agit Kabayel and WBO beltholder Daniel Dubois, will handle three of the four heavyweight beltholders at the end of the month. The WBA titlist, Murat Gassiev, had previously been expected to face Itauma later in the year.

"A lot of people have high expectations of [Itauma] as I have, by the way," Warren said. "We signed him when he was 16. He was an amateur. We sponsored him, and he turned professional with us.

"And he's been amazing and sort of taken the world by storm.”