Moses Itauma is 21, unbeaten and one night from a world title

Itauma on the edge of an IBF title

At 21, Itauma fights for the vacant IBF heavyweight title in just his 15th professional bout.

Win, and he becomes the second-youngest heavyweight world champion in the sport’s history. Lose, and the hype that has followed him since he turned professional becomes the story instead.

Opposite him is Filip Hrgovic, a 34-year-old Croatian with a 20-1 record whose only defeat came against Daniel Dubois, and who has spent years in and around the division’s hardest nights.

Why Hrgovic is the right test for Moses Itauma

The temptation with a prospect this good is to protect him. Itauma’s team have not gone that route.

Hrgovic is not a name being fed to a young heavyweight to pad a record; he is a top-level operator with genuine power, and the sort of opponent who exposes fighters who have never had to think past round four.

Twelve of Itauma’s 14 wins have ended early, which is thrilling, and also means the deep water remains largely uncharted for the Slovakian-born British boxer.

That is the tension of the whole night. Either the Croatian’s experience drags a 21-year-old into territory he has not visited, or Itauma does to him what he has done to almost everyone else and the division has a new, very young champion.

There is no comfortable middle outcome, which is why this fight is one to turn heads on Saturday, that British heavyweight boxing has had in some time.

Mayer v Cameron: three belts on the line in Birmingham

It is not the only card that matters. At the BP Pulse Arena in Birmingham, American Mikaela Mayer and Britain’s Chantelle Cameron meet in a three-belt light-middleweight unification fight.

Mayer holds the WBA and WBC titles, Cameron the WBO, and both are one step from becoming undisputed.

This is the kind of matchmaking women’s boxing has made routine while the heavyweights argue.

The Birmingham card also carries a strong supporting bill.

Unified lightweight champion Caroline Dubois defends her WBC and WBO titles against Amelia Moore, and former three-weight world champion Terri Harper is in action.

What Saturday actually settles

Prospects are cheap and champions are not. Itauma has been sold to British audiences as an inevitability, and Saturday is the first night that inevitability is genuinely up for debate.

Hrgovic has one loss in 21 fights and knows precisely what is being asked of him: be the veteran who ends the hype.

If he cannot, Britain has a world heavyweight champion who has not yet been a professional for five years, and every other fight in the division has to be rebuilt around him.