Flilip Hrgovic is the number one ranked heavyweight in the IBF rankings and, with the belts likely soon to become fractured, the Croatian is within touching distance of a world title shot.
Oleksandr Usyk currently rules the division and is the only man to ever hold all four major belts at the same time. Usyk defeated Tyson Fury to become undisputed, but with a contractual rematch in place, it’s expected the Ukrainian will be stripped of his IBF title for skipping his mandatory duties. If that’s not the case, another sanctioning body may take action.
Hrgovic had hoped his next fight against Daniel Dubois would be for the strap, but with Usyk medically suspended and with IBF rules not allowing injured fighters to be stripped, it looks like that date might come too soon.
Speaking to iFL TV, it doesn’t appear that the 31-year-old thinks his mandatory position is in jeopardy against a ‘basic’ Dubois.
“He’s orthodox, he has the basic style, he’s a little bit slow and you can see his punches coming he doesn’t have great defence, he has easy style. He’s not exactly a slick fighter or a southpaw or some crazy fast guy, so his style is normal.”
Hrgovic went on to reveal the ‘punishment’ he handed ‘DDD’ in a previous sparring session.
“He mentioned when we sparred in London, I don’t know why he mentioned that. This guy is so f**king stupid, he mentioned the sparring where he got beaten up, so why mention this?
He got the mic and talked about the sparring – he was destroyed man. We were both young but we arranged four spars, I smashed him three times and after the third spar they called and said ‘we can’t do the fourth spar, he doesn’t feel good’. He was supposed to fight one or two weeks after that and he postponed that fight and I heard he was in the hospital after that sparring.
He took a lot of punishment, I punched him so many times because he couldn’t deal with my pressure, my speed and my intelligence.”
Hrgovic-Dubois takes place on June 1 in Saudi Arabia on a card which pits five of Frank Warren’s fighters against five of Eddie Hearn’s and will be headlined by another heavyweight clash between Zhilei Zhang and Deontay Wilder.
