Mine would be (very close) 1. Dubois 2. Kabayel 3. Hrgovic 4. Gassiev (lost to Wallin, was thoroughly outboxed vs 45 y.o. Pulev till the KO, defended title against lazy punching bag Kadiru, who is outside of top-50 HWs)
1) Agit Kabayel 2) Filip Hrgović 3) Daniel Dubois 4) Murat Gassiev Hrgo and Dubois very close and interchangeable, i really want to see that rematch for a Unification and would mostly favour Big Filip in that contest.
Gassiev should have won against Wallin who did little but run from the smaller man during the fight. Gassiev was not "thoroughly" outboxed vs Pulev, the fight was close and uneventful until the KO. Gassiev did thouroughly outbox Kadiru, who is somewhere between #55 and #75 at heavyweight. But it's Yoka who is lazy, he pulled out with short notice and Kadiru was brave enough to take the fight, so he deserves a little respect. I rank the 4 titleholders like this: 1) Hrgovic - only lost to Dubois by illegal head butts 2) Kabayel - didn't look good against Kynba, gifted an early stoppage by the referee, may be declining due to inactivity; but stopped Zhang and Sanchez 3) Dubois - stopped three times; only beat Wardley and Hrgovic via head butts, when they were blinded hit them at will; best win with legal tactics Joshua 4) Gassiev - strong puncher, but rather small for heavyweight with short arms
I disagree and I scored the fight for Wallin. Anyway, Gassiev never looked impressive at HW. Old Chisora and fringe contenter Sirenko performed much better vs Wallin. Also there's no evidence that if not headbutts Dubois wouldn't have beaten Hrgovic or Wardley. He certainly had success besides headbutts late in both fights
Even igoring the cuts Hrgovic emptied the tank throwing 100 punches a round at Dubois, was unable to hurt him and was gassed himself and had no complaints when the ref stopped it. Hrg can't hurt Dubois, Dubois can do 12 rounds at a decent clip, it's always going to be a hard fight for him.
1 Kabayel 2 Dubois 3 Hrgovic 4 Gassiev Hrgovic was losing heavily against Itauma before the Englishman ran out of the gas (the Croatian then did well to capitalize on it and win the fight), and I think he'll lose the world title against Sanchez. Gassiev is solid and powerful, but one dimensional, with little footwork and a lack of speed. Against the older Pulev he was losing before landing the decisive blow.