Whoever beats Hrgovic will fight the Fury-Joshua winner (whenever that happens) one year from now. People bash the ratings orgs all the time but they do provide a clear path to belts for those who want to play ball. No rated contender who seriously wants to challenge for the title should skip this opportunity. Hrgovic is tough but beatable. He fights very upright. I can't believe guys like Yoka, especially, are passing. He has already fought Hrgovic and won. He could fight him, win, and still have a year to prepare for the big one.
Who cannot promise him a title shot for atleast two years given Joshua and Fury Will keep the WBC and WBA. Hrgovic will now be ready for IBF and Usyk for WBO. He had a shot at earning atleast $5/6m in one fight time. For going back to the back of the pile.
He's already been found out twice. He got battered by Usyk as a cruiser (who would have got the stoppage anywhere but America) and drew legitimately (KD wasn't counted) with a 40 year old badly faded Povetkin, even being outworked in the later rounds.
I've always rated the Junior Bounty Hunter & considered him a top 10 H/W well before most. He's travelled to the UK to fight an undefeated Bakole & has faced Povetkin so he's not averse to taking tough fights with the odds stacked against him. Hrgovic isn't the right fight for him & not taking it is a sensible decision, imo. I understand the other side being upset & they have a legitimate point about being led up the garden path if that in fact is what happened. Hunter doesn't have a history of doing that though. People are also entitled to change their minds if they haven't signed a contract (or even if they have so long as they are prepared to pay the price for breaching it). I'd say the latter is poor form but there's no suggestion Hunter has done that. People avoiding Hrgovic like the plague is the ultimate compliment to him. The more I've seen of Hrgovic, the more impressed I've been. Maybe Hunter's camp is the same? If you're a well managed fighter with your own legitimate career aspirations, you don't fight a guy like him unless there's a world title & significant money on the table. Neither was on offer to Hunter in this fight.
Assuming that Fury, Joshua, Usyk and Wilder are tied up, Hunter better be fighting Parker, Whyte or Ruiz next, otherwise this is a blatant duck.
Sauerland mentioned that Bakole might be Hrgovic's opponent. That would be okay. Parker, Yoka and Martin have said no. It will very likely be a boxer promoted by Hearn or Sauerland.
Parker I think might be not better fight than Hrgovic for Hunter cos Parker is more experienced than Hrgovic.
Fair to say no one wants any of Hrgovic. He may as well just stay active until someone decent wants to step in with him.
Unfortunately this is going to continue happen a lot to Hrgovic. There's just no money behind him. The total purse bid for the Hunter fight was barely over half a million. No higher ranked HWs are going to accept that risk/reward for such low money.
I personally don't rate Hunter quite as highly as some, but playing devil's advocate: 1) Hunter got a draw against Povetkin which Hunter and his supporters feel he won on a Matchroom card. 2) Hunter then falls out with Matchroom and gets released. So he no longer has the backing of a well-connected promoter. 3) Hrgovic in contrast has both Hearn and the Sauerlands behind him. 4) Hunter's most realistic route to victory is getting a win on the cards. 5) Matchroom won the purse bid. So, how realistic is it for Hunter to engage in a fight without the backing of a large promoter. How much of a chance do you give him of getting a fair shake on the cards given his history with Matchroom? I still consider this a duck, and I don't like it, but I can understand it and somewhat sympathise with the situation he finds himself in.
Was Hunter at some sort of disadvantage? He was a matchroom fighter at the time. Who would be at a bigger perceived disadvantage an American or a Russian fighting on a UK card?