Usyk, Kabayel, Wardley and Itauma are overrated and Hrgovic is underrated - long analysis

Bubbles, my opinion about Hrgovic is only „out there“ in the same way that the opinion that Earth isn't flat was „out there“ in medieval Europe. Which is to say, it is „out there“ if your standard is majority/mainstream opinion, not objective reality.

Most of the things I wrote are facts, and then I make a conclusion based on these facts that you could say is my opinion. Not all opinions are equally fact-based. Opinions can be objectively wrong.

F.e. it's a fact that Dubois did illegal headbutts in the Hrgovic fight. It's a fact that he gained around 6kg of almost pure muscle in only 10 months. It's a fact that such muscle gain for somebody who's already trained is extremely unlikely to be natural. It's a fact that Hrgovic was sick before the fight. It's a fact that he didn't finish his training camp. It's a fact that sickness and not training the last 2-3 weeks before the fight diminishes your power and cardio. It's a fact that despite all of that Hrgovic was still winning on points even though he was visibly not at the top of his game. It's a fact that the refereeing and stoppage decision wasn't consistent with boxing rules.

I take all these facts into account when presenting my opinion. You try to ignore them because they go against your narrative.

The reason Hrgovic doesn't have enough good names on his resume is he is constantly dodged, which ironically you refuse to admit despite clearly not even being informed on the subject and even the basic English wikipedia article on Hrgovic will give you a lot of examples of people ducking Hrgovic. This is an excerpt just from the Zhang article, when people didn't dare fight Hrgovic even for the status of mandatory IBF challenger:

Spoiler: wiki

Hrgović vs. Zhang

On January 3, 2022, the IBF sent an invitation to Hrgović and [url]Luis Ortiz[/url] to enter talks for a final title eliminator. Hrgović immediately accepted the offer, with his promoters stating: "Challenge accepted by Filip Hrgovic, [Three] days and counting for Luis Ortiz to accept".[url][67][/url] Ortiz refused, citing inability to compete due to injury. The IBF then invited the next highest ranked heavyweight contender, [url]Joseph Parker[/url], to enter talks for a title eliminator bout.[url][68][/url] Parker refused to enter talks as well, due to recovering from injuries.[url][69][/url] On January 10, the same invitation was extended to [url]Tony Yoka[/url].[url][70][/url] Yoka accepted the offer on January 13.[url][71][/url] The fight was supposed to be a rematch of their [url]2016 Summer Olympics[/url] semi-final bout, which Yoka narrowly won on points.[url][72][/url] The IBF later ruled Yoka ineligible to enter an agreement with any opponent other than [url]Martin Bakole[/url], as the two had already signed contracts to face each other.[url][73][/url] On January 26, both [url]Andy Ruiz Jr.[/url] and [url]Murat Gassiev[/url] received invitations to enter into negotiations with Hrgović,[url][74][/url] which they refused five days later, citing lingering injuries as the reason for refusal.[url][75][/url] On February 7, it was revealed that the #13 ranked Chinese heavyweight [url]Zhilei Zhang[/url] had accepted the invitation to enter into negotiations with Hrgović.[url][76][/url]

It's actually a joke in Croatian boxing community that whenever a big name needed to fight Hrgovic they were all suddenly "injured"

I asked before in this thread for examples of why Hrgovic's stamina is bad, received nothing, then you mention it again. Now go and mention the Dubois fight as an example of Hrgovic's poor stamina to complete your continuous dishonest ignoring of relevant context.

And you seriously disrespect Joyce, who beat Dubois and Parker, 2 top 10 fighters, and whose only losses are to other top 10 heavyweights, Zhang being stylistically probably the worst matchup possible for Joyce, Chisora also being a bad matchup and it would have been a draw had Chisora not caught Joyce off balance and got the knockdown. Also if it were 12 rounds Joyce would definitely win, Chisora was totally spent by the end. Look at some of these other names mentioned in top 10, unlike Joyce some of them literally didn't beat 1 name in top 10, let alone 2. Nelson Hysa? Jared Anderson the American hypejob? Jalolov? Pero brothers? 0 wins over top 10s. Probably there are more.

 

I would agree that trying to compare Joshua and Hrgovic via their performances vs Dubois isn't definite, but such things are always a good indicator, certainly better than your baseless disrespect of Hrgovic that you can't back up.

And then when you have other opponents both Hrgovic and Joshua fought, like Molina and Zumbano, and they dispatched them similarly quickly and efficiently, compared to f.e. Wilder who struggled against Molina, that's more pieces of evidence of Hrgovic and Joshua being on a similar level. Also Hrgovic's accomplishments I mentioned - Youth World Champion, WSB champion, Olympic medalist, and both Fury and Wlad were impressed with him enough to state they consider him a future world champ.

Parker didn't want to fight Hrgovic in the pros, and he lost to him in amateurs. And I'm supposed to draw the conclusion that Parker is equal to or better than Hrgovic?

Because, what, Hrgovic doesn't have enough names on his pro resume? And he doesn't have enough names because people, like Parker, don't dare fight him lol. Look at my previous response to Bubbles for the wikipedia entry on how many people, including Parker, ducked Hrgovic, and that was just for one fight.

I'm not saying their fight is a foregone conclusion but according to what we know, and especially Parker being so slow and burdened by useless bodybuilder muscle nowadays, it's reasonable to assume Hrgovic would win.

I disagree about Usyk, I think Hrgovic's technique, reach, chin, punch output, and stamina now with Abel Sanchez would enable him to win enough rounds to beat Usyk. Usyk would have trouble collecting points without risking dangerous counters, he'd forfeit too many rounds to avoid damage. Again, remember that Hrgovic has never been losing on points, and unlike Usyk, he's not scared to take punches to win a round. And if Hrgovic were losing on points somehow you can be sure he'd go for the KO even at the risk of getting KO'd himself, and I think in such a war Usyk would be at a disadvantage. It's a different mentality from the likes of Fury and Joshua, they're good boxers, but they don't have it. Chisora and Hrgovic have it.

 

Zhang was simply too inactive most rounds, you may give individual rounds to quality of punches over quantity to a certain extent, but in most rounds he was just too inactive. You can't win 3 rounds out of 12 with 1 „knockdown“ and expect to win the fight. The fighters who go for quality of punches over quantity usually KO their opponents. Zhang wasn't able to do that to Hrgovic. And look at how the fight ended. End of 12th round.

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38:45-53 Hrgovic still wants to fight, Zhang literally runs to his corner and drags himself by the ropes.

So if the end of the fight looks like that, then it's clear who was more rattled and who was more deterred from his own goals, Hrgovic looks like he wants more, Zhang looks like he had enough.

 

The point of that analogy is that majority opinion isn't always correct, so if that's what you referred to with "out there" your comment is irrelevant and redundant. Yes, I already know my opinion isn't mainstream.

I do think Hrgovic is objectively the best I just wouldn't state it as a 100% certainty, but that I view him as a favorite against any current heavyweight, as I said I think he has an at least 51% chance against anybody, barring things like sickness, unfinished camp, poor refereeing, and "advanced supplement" abuse.

 

Funny how you're telling me what point I was trying to illustrate even after I specifically told you, damn I guess you know better than me what I was trying to say. Either way you clearly don't understand it so there's no point repeating it.

Usyk was hurt by Fury's jabs to the body so Hrgovic can definitely hurt him, and in a Croatian interview he said if he fought Usyk he'd be aggressive and go for the body, probably because Usyk's head movement is too good. Usyk was also hurt by Fury's uppercut counterpunch, so there's that too.

And I've already spoken about Hrgovic's stamina, none of you criticising it have an actual argument, you just say "Hrgovic stamina bad", that's not an argument, that's an opinion, and a demonstrably false one. An argument against a fighter's stamina would be f.e. Zhang losing rounds 10,11 and 12 decisively against Hrgovic, and, more recently, barely throwing punches against Kabayel after the first round.

Hrgovic has one of highest punch outputs in HW division and was literally never losing on points. So your claim his stamina is bad is totally baseless. I would actually agree Usyk has a better engine, I just disagree that it is so much better it would win him the fight.

The fact is Usyk has not fought anybody like Hrgovic yet. Joshua was scared shitless to go inside and isn't as active as Hrgovic because he is more fast-twitch muscle fiber dominant, so he couldn't throw the volume of Hrgovic even if he wanted without extremely tiring himself. Fury clowned around the first fight and was still winning middle rounds with distance control and jabs. Second fight he came too heavy and slow to keep up with Usyk. Chisora had the balls but not the stamina to keep up the punch output, he is also shorter than Usyk, unlike Hrgovic, and technically worse.

Nobody Usyk fought yet has Hrgovic's combination of size+chin+technique+balls+stamina (again, yeah Usyk's engine might be better, but Hrgovic only needs 7 rounds, not 12, and frankly I doubt even late rounds Usyk would be doing much better). I don't think Usyk could handle Hrgovic's pressure and counter-punches. Hrgovic is like a slightly worse Vitali to me, in that he is a bit slower and more static, so similarly to how I don't see Usyk beating Vitali, I don't see him beating Hrgovic.

 

Did you ask a chatbot to write the most mainstream average joe's opinion?

 

Exactly what I said.