Barry McGuigan Rips Ben Davison's Corner Call in Itauma Loss

Moses Itauma walked into The O2 as a 14-0 heavyweight prospect with 12 knockouts and every reason to believe he'd leave as IBF champion. Instead, the 21-year-old dominated Filip Hrgovic for most of nine rounds, then hit a wall. Exhaustion, not a single big shot, ended his night — and the debate about how it was handled hasn't cooled since.

Barry McGuigan, a Hall of Fame inductee, put the blame squarely on the corner. Speaking to Seconds Out, McGuigan argued that trainer Ben Davison should have thrown in the towel roughly ten seconds earlier than he did, rather than standing there watching a clearly spent fighter take avoidable punishment.

Why the Timing Matters

McGuigan's point wasn't about tactics — it was about duty of care. He said a corner's first job is protecting the fighter, and that once a man is ragged, falling all over the place and out of gas, hesitation only invites damage. His language was blunt, his message blunter: two more punches on an exhausted fighter can do lasting harm, so you stop it and save him for another night.

There's a competitive layer here too. Itauma had done the hard part, controlling the fight against a genuinely dangerous opponent, before his own tank betrayed him. McGuigan framed the late stoppage as needless — not just risky, but a dent to a young fighter's confidence when the result was already slipping away.

Fans have piled in with their own version of the same question: was this a preparation problem? A pacing problem? Whatever the answer, an undefeated record is now a loss, and the reasons for it will follow Itauma into camp for whatever comes next.

Davison, for his part, gets a fast chance to change the conversation. Next month he corners Fabio Wardley — 20-1-1 with 19 KOs and ranked #4 — in a rematch with WBO champion Daniel Dubois. Dubois, 23-3 (22 KO), stopped Wardley in the 11th round last time out. Win that, and Davison adds a world heavyweight champion to his stable and quiets the doubters. Lose, and the questions only get louder.