This is how inactive the HW scene has become. No fights scheduled involving top 30 fighters. Only 4 top 50 fighters have scheduled bouts. Based on boxrec rankings. Some very inactive fighters like Hunter have fallen out of the rankings altogether. OK I get that there have been a few fights recently. But HW division is generally getting more and more inactive to the point they might as well not bother.
If Fury, Joshua and Wilder retire, the division will be one of the worst and it will take a long time untill there are new upcoming, intresting fighters. After the boring Klitschko era we had like 10 relatively exciting years in HW. This will come to an end in the middle of this decade.
We are in a transitionary phase where the top crop are either going to retire or push further into the late stage career before retiring soon. Usyk will retire next year. Fury would be wise to follow him but can't.
They will retire once they fight real competition or the punch drunk fans grow tried of senseless re-matches. The next wave of upcoming young heavies is pretty big. Give it say two years and the jokers will be gone from the scene. Hopefully the next wave of contenders will take the sport more seriously.
My Predictions for 2023: 1. Usyk vs. Fury (= SD Usyk) 2. Wilder vs. Ruiz (= KO Ruiz) 3. Joshua vs. Whyte = (KO Joshua) 4 . Hrgovic vs. Bakole = (UD Hrgovic)
That sounds about right. I think Jalolov will be right in the mix by middle 2024. That left hand is nasty. I think after Usyk beats Fury he might defend the title once and ride off into the sunset. He’s basically said that was his plan in so many words. Maybe two defenses… we’ll see. I think Hrgovic, Joyce and Jalolov will have some fun fights somewhere in 2024-25
The promoters and managers are currently doing a poor job of making heavyweight fights. Most heavyweights are fighting only once per year. Zhang, Wallin, Ortiz, Ruiz, Hunter, Hrgovic, Joshua, Bakole, and many others should have a fight scheduled by now.
A very quiet division and makes you wonder what is going on behind the scenes. Fury Usyk Joshua Joyce all coming towards the end of there careers so you would think the division would be red hot amongst the contenders just waiting to make that final step up and usher in the new generation .
I think he really much improved technically. Maybe not the best gas tank indeed but his last performance against Yoka impressed me. Also Hrgovic struggled with Yoka during the Olympics. Bakole litterally destroyed Yoka. is sparring with Usyk surely benefited him. Meanwhile on the other side I see Hrgovic not progressing or even regressing. In any case I would be delighted to see such a match-up