Makes no sense to choose to roll the dice with arguably higher risk, lower reward Hrgovic over Joyce.
Joyce is the easier fight for Usyk by far. Even if he does beat Hrgovic whatever lands will diminish the rest of his career.
Joyce landed numerous flush punches against Bryant Jennings and didn't come close to stopping him. Old man Luis Ortiz destroyed Jennings years before. Joyce is a good puncher but nothing special.
Great fight! I cant wait to see Hrgovic against a boxer as elite as Usyk! huge step up in competition for Hrgovic. Hrgovic has a chance but I tend to favor Experience over promise. I would have preferred Usyk vs Joyce and Hunter vs Hrgovic but I'll take what I can get.
True enough but as they say power is the last thing to go and Ortiz had the deadly combination of being a skilled southpaw power puncher. It is also dubious to only look at one fight: across all of their amateur bouts listed on Boxrec, Joyce KO'd 18% of his amateur opponents and 43.75% in the semi-pro WSoB, compared to Hrgovic's 13.89% and 40%. Joyce also has the higher KO % in the pros: 91.67% vs 83.33%. Joyce has the added distinction of more experience against and defeating stronger professional opposition and Joyce beat Hrgovic in the WSoB, though it was a close fight against a far less mature Hrgovic. In terms of skillsets, psychological toughness and physical attributes there is not much to separate them, either fight is very difficult for Usyk.
I don't believe that Usyk will agree to a fight like this because he is aiming for bigger names and a fight with Hrgovic would be extremely risky for him, Joyce is better ranked and I must admit that I would rather see Hrgovic vs Parker...
If it gets Usyk the mandatory that would make him mando in two boxing orgs, excerting more pressure on Joshua or Fury. That's the carrot.
I think Hrgovic is somehow overrated in this forum. No doubt, he's young and an upcoming talent and we will certainly see more of him in the coming years, but what has he proven so far? 12-0 resume, against some experienced but mediocre and old fighters. Usyk is proven ATG in Cruiserweight and a complete fighter already. Yes, his position among HW still has to be established, but he should not have difficulties at all against Hrgovic. Usyk is certainly going to outbox him, maybe even a mid-late KO. Given all this, the IBF mandatory position is a low risk and high reward for Usyk. I would take the fight, since Fury-Joshua seems to happen. It could be a build up fight even to challenge the winner of those, maybe even fighting on their undercard.
I think Joyce is better than Hrgovic personally. Hrgovic's two biggest opponents were joke fights vs Punching back Molina who he KO'd with a punch to the back of the head, and against Rydell booker who is nothing.
Well, while Hrgovic really isn't tested with anyone with a pulse from top 25, I remember boxers who had been called as overrated earlier and even underdogs. These boxers were: Glowacki before fights vs Huck was underdog and in fight vs Huck Huck really had won almost all fight until he did 1 mistake. Briedis was underdog before fights vs Charr and a bit vs Durodola ( Durodola then was 35 y.o and after impressive win via stoppage, his fight record then looked good and he had WBC Silver belt. If he had won this fight, he had been mandatory for WBC World title ). Some fans had counted KO numbers and Durodola then had better these numbers. Without knowing that the same Briedis pro debut was at HW and looks that without pre fight camp, outcome: points win was natural. Usyk: he had been considered by a lot of fans as overvalued and this ended with undisputed in division + The Ring belt and Ali trophy. Dorticos vs Tabiti: a lot of ppl picked Tabiti to win cos he was undefeated and had come out from win vs then undefeated 23-0-0 boxer in Russia. Outcome: Dorticos stopped Tabiti. Beterbiev vs Gvozdyk, majority of ppl I do know IRL had wrong pick before fight: that Gvozdyk will win this one. This was wrong prediction.