Moses Itauma ’12-round spar’ claim debunked as Fabio Wardley defends stablemate

Fabio Wardley has leapt to the defence of his stablemate Moses Itauma after he lost to Filip Hrgovic.

Itauma was looking to make heavyweight history by becoming the second youngest heavyweight champion ever, but came up short.

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He was stopped late on by Hrgovic who captured the IBF heavyweight world title, and handed him his first career defeat.

Naturally many figures within the walls of the sport have made their own inquests into the reasons that the young maverick came up short.

Many looked towards the corner advice of Ben Davison, or even his physical conditioning.

But the widespread take was to point to Itauma’s interview on talkSPORT during which he suggested he was yet to spar for 12 rounds.

However his stablemate Wardley, who is also trained by Ben Davison, has revealed that Itauma has in fact participated in longer length sparring.

He said on talkSPORT’s Hawksbee & Jacobs: “I know Moses did do twelve rounds multiple times.

“He did it in the build-up to the fight, not before when that interview was done.

“There’s a reason for that because you build up towards something, so he may have done eight rounders, tens, then finished on twelves.

“We are big heavy guys, we don’t do 12 rounds sparring all the time, we wouldn’t make it to the fight.

“You have to be savvy about how you prepare for a fight, camps are long, you have to balance it well enough.”

Wardley responds to Itauma trainer criticism

Fingers have been pointed towards Davison again, in a similar fashion to how they were for a defeat to Anthony Joshua against Daniel Dubois in 2024.

Wardley has come to defence of his mutual coach, and believes the advice that was given to Itauma in the corner was perfectly adequate.

“I think a lot of the chat aimed at Ben Davison is ridiculous,” he continued.

“There is clips of the corner work, they were giving him the most direct advice.

“Moses is 21-years-old, give the guy some credit and give the guy a break.

“A loss, as long as you take it as a learning experience, there is loads you can take from it.

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“I’ve checked in with the team, I’ll see him in the gym and we will probably chat about it.”