Today, Frank Warren hosted a media roundtable for a handful of journalists. Here is what the Hall of Fame promoter had to say
Frank, can I just dive in? Thanks for your time. I just wanted to, obviously, great news for everyone involved with this fight being sanctioned by the IBF.
Now, we obviously were told or they said that they wanted Frank Sanchez to box Moses for it. I just wondered, from your point of view, what was the process to get to where we are now, where this fight in London is going to be for that belt?
Well, the timings are we’d already made the fight. It’s a great fight, always going to be a tough fight and a big test for Moses.
And the fact that Usyk vacated the belts and this opportunity, we felt there was a big opportunity there for him to, or for us to secure the crack at the title for him and upgrade the fight for the vacant belt, that’s what we did – so a deal was done with Sanchez.
And here we are. We’ve got, for Moses, the opportunity to become the second youngest ever world heavyweight champion after Mike Tyson. And the second, certainly since the War, the second youngest fighter to win a world title after Naseem Hamed.
So, you know, it ticks all the boxes.
Was it a case of, or can you tell us if it’s a case of step aside money, quote unquote, step aside money for Frank Sanchez? Was it as simple as that?
Well, you know, Frank Sanchez and his manager, they certainly are not benevolent people.
Since you were already arranged for this particular opponent, it’s clear that you think he’s ready for this, even though the world title is added to it. It’s more exciting, but he’s as ready for this fight as he’ll ever be.
Well, I hope so.
You know, he’s only had 14 fights, so this is a massive step up for him. You know, he’s in with a guy, I mean, you’ve all seen him fight – Hrgovic. He’s got a stellar amateur record, and as a pro, he’s only lost one fight.
He’s got 15 KOs, he can punch, and he fancies it, Hrgovic. You know, he really does think that he’s got the skills to beat Moses. He thinks he’s got the experience, and we’re going to find out.
You know, Moses, as a pro, and you look at the amount of rounds he’s got under his belt, they’re not a lot of rounds, but we believe in him, and I do think this is a fight that I hope he comes through and will show the world what a talent he is.
One of his talents, if you like, Hrgovic, is that he’s proved that he can take very big punches in a couple of his fights against the Chinese fighter [Zhilei Zhang] and those guys. It makes it a more fascinating test, in a way, doesn’t it?
Well, it does, and also think of the shots he [Hrgovic] took from Daniel Dubois, and you see what Dubois did with AJ.
You know, he is a strong guy. He’s a very, very strong guy, and he punches hard himself. Again, now look at the fight he had with Daniel in Saudi, and in that fight, the first sort of four rounds, he was catching him with big shots and was boxing extremely well.
Look, you know, he [Moses] is a young man. He’s undefeated as an amateur, you know, won the European Championships, knocking everybody out in the first round, won the World Championships, the ones he didn’t knock out, he put on the floor. You know, he’s a winning fighter.
He’s got a winning mentality, and one thing that I find about him is that he’s very, very mature mentally, and he really fancies this job. We’ve had a lot of discussions about it, and he’s, you know, he’s not somebody who just goes into a fight. He studies his opponents and looks for what he feels, you know, what their weaknesses may be and how he can exploit them, and that’s what I like about him, and I think that this is going to be a, it will be a tough fight, and we’re going to see what he’s all about.
You know, I’ve got it right, because obviously, the end of it all, it’s me who’s sort of pushed this and made the decision, so fingers crossed that that is the case, but I do believe in him, and I do think he’s a very precocious talent, and I do think he’s capable, but I have utmost respect as well for Filip.
Thanks, Frank.
Frank, good to see you, thanks for your time. We know Moses is kind of a low-key, understated sort of guy, but how was he when he heard that this is for a world title? Did you sense a deep excitement in him this time?
Yeah, when he signed with us as an amateur he said he wanted to be the youngest ever world champion. That was his ambition, and I think that like all young fighters, when you’re young, you all want to do the best, be the best, and obviously, once he turned pro, you see what a steady road and how difficult that can be, but when I told him this happened, he was over the moon. It was like he’d resigned himself to… he wasn’t going to be the youngest champion because he’d passed the age that Mike Tyson had won the title at, but he was so thrilled. I mean, unbelievably thrilled. For him, this was the cherry on the cake. He wanted to fight, he wanted to fight Hrgovic, and having the IBF title on the line has made it even more spicy, and more of a challenge.
And similarly with Hrgovic, how was he when he heard, because he clearly does fancy the fight, did you again sense perhaps a deeper intensity in him now that he knows it could end up with him being a world champion?
Well, I did promise him he’d get a shot at the world title, and it’s happened. It wasn’t something that we planned at the time we first made the fight, but it’s happened, and he’s over the moon as well. I mean, look, for these guys, we’re all sick vacating the belts, choosing not to defend them.
This has made it even more exciting times, so these guys know what’s on the line. They know that whoever gets this belt, they’ve got currency, and they are considered to be a world champion, but they’ve also got the currency of what it brings with them, the money that they can earn out of being the world champion. So it’s going to spur them on even more, and for Hrgovic, that’s what he’s all about.
He wants this world title.
Cheers for your time. I suppose you could say there’s a couple of similarities between when Anthony Joshua first won the world title, same arena, same belt, not too dissimilar in terms of records, obviously not age, but that really kind of started AJ’s ascent to sort of superstardom here.
I suppose you’ll be thinking this will be the start of Moses.
Well, I hope it will be, although I do think that Hrgovic is a much better fighter than Charles Martin, although he had the belt, but he also got the belt by default when Tyson vacated when he had his problems. But yeah, it’s part of his journey.
This is the journey.
So you guys will have the confidence that he’ll go on to even surpass what Joshua and the others did?
Look, that’s what we do as promoters, and we invest in fighters that we believe in, and we’ve been investing in him since he was 16. It’s not something overnight, he’s been with us now for, he’s coming up to his sixth year since he signed to be with us.
And this has all been part of the plan. And it’s a tough fight. I hope he wins it, I believe he can win it.
If he doesn’t, it’s part of his education. But I do believe he can win it. But I don’t see this as being any easy job by any means.
And as the fight goes on, we’ll see if the fight, if that’s if the fight does go on. What I’ve seen of Moses up to as yet, and the fight and the caliber of the fighters he’s beaten, I know who the fighters are. Some obviously may have not been the fighters they were a couple of years ago.
Having said that, that’s the same for all fighters coming through. But it’s how you win, how you go about your business. And the way he’s been fighting and the way he goes about his craft and his and applies his trade is far in front than anybody I can think of at his age.
Yeah. And I read an interview you did with the BBC where you said, already, if things go well, and he wins the belt, there’s unifications potentially at Wembley. It’s very rare that a fighter will know the next two fights, if he wins this.
Do you think maybe if he wins this, then Sanchez, he could look at those stadium fights after that?
Yeah, look, he’s got to win it first. If he wins it, one thing’s for sure, the British heavyweight scene is alight. You’ve got a big fight coming up with the two senior heavyweights in Tyson and AJ.
Everybody is obviously waiting for that to happen in November and to be announced. And in the meantime, you’ve got all these guys all jockeying around, Moses, Daniel Dubois, who holds a belt, who is a champion, Fabio Wardley, who’s going to challenge him in October, plus the others that are all there. The heavyweight scene is just amazing.
When I think of when I took my license out with the Board of Control 46 years ago, I look at this and it is amazing because there were no Brits, no Brits had won the world heavyweight title at that stage.
Okay, finally for me, in an ideal world, but maybe not a realistic world, as a promoter, would you dream of maybe Itauma fighting the Joshua-Fury winner in a sort of an unconfirmed passing of the British torch?
I think all of those fights are available. All of those fights are there to be done if the fighters want to do them. And as I say, exciting times, what a great fight that if Moses comes through, Daniel Dubois is down the road, two massive punchers, what a fight that would be.
That’s a stadium filler all day long.
Frank, thanks for giving us some of your time. Obviously, you’ve got this stronghold on the division, which has been well publicised.
How soon do you think it could be before we see a new undisputed champion crowned?
I think it will happen within the next 18 months, two years. You know, obviously they’ve got the belts have got to be fought for, vacant belts, whatever it is, they’ll all be fought for. We’ve got to get the governing bodies together to agree a unification programme.
And that means mandatories being pushed back and so forth. So there’s a lot of things to be done. But we’re in a bit, I mean, one thing no one can accuse us of is getting these fights on.
We’re making this division move. I don’t think the heavyweight division’s had so many title fights on like this in succession for many, many, many years. And we’re making it happen.
And I do believe that we will when our goal and ultimately where we want to be is to see who’s the best out of these bunch of fighters, see who’s going to be the best and hold the four belts and go and move on from there.
