ITAUMA WANTS HRGOVIC REMATCH BUT WARREN CALLS FOR PATIENCE
Promoter allegedly has urged Moses Itauma to "switch off from boxing" after the 21-year-old asked for an immediate rematch with Filip Hrgovic.
Itauma (14-1, 12 KOs) dominated Hrgovic (21-1, 16 KOs) for eight rounds on Saturday before punching himself out and losing by stoppage in the ninth round of their IBF heavyweight title fight at O2 Arena in London.
Itauma had to be carried out of the arena on a stretcher before being sent to the hospital. The Kent puncher was discharged in the early hours of Sunday morning and vowed to box on in a video uploaded to social media later that day.
Warren now says Itauma has already asked for a rematch with Hrgovic, who is likely to face mandatory challenger Frank Sanchez next.
"He's saying to me, 'Can we get the rematch on?' which is a natural reaction," Warren told talkSPORT.
"But I told him, 'You have got to switch off from boxing, go and chill out and spend some time with your family and come back, recharge your batteries and then we get to work again.
"'The landscape is what it is; you are a big part of it. You have shown you belong at that level.'"
"Provided he learns the lessons from the fight, I think he can go on and do great things. I would like to see him in at least one, maybe two fights and see where we go before we go [back to that level].
"We've got to sit down with the whole team and discuss this. His manager is my son Francis, and all of us will get together to look at it."
Itauma looked blistering in the opening round and dropped Hrgovic in the second with a counter right-hook. He continued to land at will throughout and notably connected with a howitzer of an uppercut in the fifth round.
However, Croatian Hrgovic stood up to all the punishment and at the end of the eighth, after Itauma put all his effort into trying to take his opponent out, it became clear the Brit was in trouble.
Warren, who has been promoting for 46 years, could see the end for Itauma was nigh.
"I've been around the game long enough; I knew on the night what was going to happen," Warren said. "I was sat next to his brother, and after the seventh he looked like he was puffing a bit and then in the eighth round he came out with a big round.
"I said, 'He's going to punch himself out.' I could see what was going to happen. He had his foot stuck down on overdrive, and that was it. I believe 98 per cent of the heavyweight fighters would have got stopped on Saturday by the punches he was throwing.
"And I said to him only recently, 'There will come a time when you come against someone who can take a shot, and you'll have to get to plan B.'
"That's what happened on the night, and it's happened to so many fighters over the years, especially big-punching fighters.
"But with him, he put so much into it that he didn't have the strength to box. If he could have boxed the last few rounds, maybe he would have got through that because he was miles ahead on points.
"The only way Filip could have won was to knock him over, which is what he did at the end of the day."
