The awkwardly effective (shades of Vitali Klitschko indeed) giant from Zagreb would appear to be on a pretty clear track for the green belt. He began the month ranked by just the one major org, and captured the WBC International title last week in knocking out Amir Mansour (who is strangely unrated himself, due to "legal" reasons per the organization's website ) which presumably will elevate him at least a few spaces...very likely pulling him astride fellow super heavies Lucas Browne and Robert Helenius. Eyeing up the names of thirty contenders in front of him - is there an obstacle he definitely isn't ready for as he marches toward an inevitable siege of Deontay Wilder? 1 .- Dillian Whyte (Jamaica/GB) SILVER 2 .- Luis Ortiz (Cuba) 3 .- Tyson Fury (GB) * CBP/P 4 .- Dominic Breazeale (US) 5 .- Tony Bellew (GB) 6 .- Joseph Parker (New Zealand) 7 .- Agit Kabayel (Germany) EBU 8 .- Dereck Chisora (GB) 9 .- Charles Martin (US) 10 .- Adam Kownacki (US) 11 .- Oscar Rivas (Colombia/Canada) NABF 12 .- Hughie Fury (GB) BBB C 13 .- Bryant Jennings (US) 14 .- Andy Ruiz Jr. (Mexico) 15 .- Mariusz Wach (Poland) 16 .- Johann Duhaupas (France) 17 .- Carlos Takam (Cameroon) 18 .- Kyotaro Fujimoto (Japan) OPBF 19 .- Sergey Kuzmin (Russia) 20 .- Marco Huck (GB) 21 .- Bermane Stiverne (Haiti/Canada) 22 .- Tony Yoka (France) 23 .- Tomasz Adamek (Poland) 24 .- Robert Helenius (Finland) 25 .- Lucas Browne (Australia) 26 .- Gerald Washington (US) 27 .- Daniel Dubois (GB) YOUTH 28 .- Joe Joyce (GB) COMM 29 .- Simon Kean (Canada) FRANCOPHONE 30 .- Tyrone Spong (Surinam) LATINO 31 .- Filip Hrgovic (Croatia) 32 .- Artur Szpilka (Poland) 33 .- Nathan Gorman (GB) INTL Silver 34 .- Tom Schwarz (Germany) 35 .- Otto Wallin (Sweden) 36 .- Michael Hunter (US) 37 .- Izuagbe Ugonoh (Poland) 38 .- Tshibuabua Kalonga (Congo/Germany) ABU 39 .- Pitar Milas (Croatia) 40 .- Jermaine Franklin (US) I'm still not completely sold on him, compared with some of his most fervent hype men, but after now having caught the Mansour performance and perusing the list I'm hard pressed to say there's anything but a red carpet rolled out for him. Everyone ranked higher by the WBC and by extension nearly everyone in the division (excluding WBA super/IBF/WBO champ Anthony Joshua plus his forthcoming challenger Alexander Povetkin, interim WBA champ Trevor Bryan, and regular WBA champ Manuel Charr plus his forthcoming challenger Fres Oquendo) is either too small and/or shopworn or simply not that good a fighter. The jury's still out regarding Yoka, despite his similar youth, size, and pedigree - at least until La Conquête steps up in class to quite the same extent Hrga just did with just one more pro bout. Otherwise the only people I see as being question marks are Parker, the Fury cousins, Ortiz and maybe Whyte. As high as I used to be on "Kaboom", time is well past nigh to admit that chronic mismanagement in the pros and unfortunate eye injuries have spelled doom for Óscar Rivas ever making good on his potential. Thoughts?
Oh, and once the rabble is cleared from his path - what about Hrgović vs. Wilder, if the champ hangs onto his verdant prize that long? How does that go down?
You forgot about the boogeyman (shades of George Foreman indeed) Joe Joyce, he looks already more like a pro and imo he has a higher ceiling than Whyte and Parker.
How much money / following is behind him? Because challenging for WBC doesn't seem to be about who you beat as much as how much money can be made. For instance: [QUOTE="IntentionalButt, post: 19399962, member: 13070] 3 .- Tyson Fury (GB) * CBP/ Thoughts?[/QUOTE] How on earth did fighting those two cans result in a 3 ranking?
definitely shades of vitali going on! I think he might go all the way Also why is there always a couple of Chinese and Japanese heavyweights in the top 50 that never fight anyone with a pulse????
He has still got a long way to go. Nice job beating a 5'11", 46 year old man. But let's see him follow it up with a series of good wins over more physically capable guys.
This was answered for you on my thread you trolled which is on HW division...now here you are contemplating about a division you stated ........ " Heavyweight sucks and has always sucked. Whether it has sucked less at other times is really immaterial " You now make a HW thread yourself and actually list an entire roster of guys and ask about them.....? and you couldn't even mention more then a handful of the actual guys Hrgovic is going to be up against but you managed CHARRs name ..I guess that can reinforce your quote ?
I'm excited to see how he goes. I thought of Vitali during the Mansour fight too, funnily enough. Wiping him out in a few rounds is legit quite impressive this many fights in. He has been moved at a good pace so far, so another step up soon please. Would like to see him against Kuzmin as a 'prospect' battle soon
Hm, forgot about him entirely, yeah - curious that he doesn't even crack the WBC top 40 yet, as his coup stick to date is as long as, say, Tony Yoka's with no real difference in quality. You think Joyce will end up being greater than Hrgović? Or just think he'd be the better man h2h based on styles?
I think he's already clearly head and shoulders above Kuzmin (figuratively and literally) Kuzmin is lucky a Mansour rematch never materialized because he might have been exposed and misplaced his zero by now. The same Mansour that got cudgeled in under ten minutes by the Croat.
Junlong Zhang is a blatant fraud whose fights are rigged, even worse than Ali Raymi. Kyotaro Fujimoto is a good fighter, was a top contender in kickboxing for many years before crossing over, and is a so-so heavyweight (got a pair of gifts over blown-up 154lber Nobuhiro Ishida but has improved a little since) but unworthy of the ranking. I'd say Tyrone Spong, twelve spots down from him in the September edition of the WBC rankings, arguably has the better pro boxing record in less than half as long since their respective debuts. Spong has a better single victory (Silgado) than any of Fujimoto's non-robberies plus no embarrassing TKO loss to Solomon Haumono. If they met h2h I'd almost certainly pick Spong, who incidentally kicked his ass nine years ago in the finals of the World Grand Prix in K1.
No doubt, but I like these 'unbeaten against unbeaten' fights as two fighters build up. They're a good gut check, even if one is favored over the other. I know the not knowing how to lose thing is a tad cliche but I think there is something to it. Or maybe there really isn't and the division is just that damn thin
What is all this drivel? So much dumb to unpack. Hrgović looks to be a decent heavyweight and breath of fresh air in the very stale division. The division is still, with or without him, by far the p4p weakest and most boring in the sport. Both of those statements can be true at the same time. You get that one doesn't preclude the other, right? That my interest encompassing the whole sport does mean that sometimes, occasionally, I will touch upon the heavyweight division? Even if, to my tastes, it does indeed suck relative to every other weight class - it still happens to be a part of the sport I'm obsessed with, so yes now and then when there is a good enough reason to I will make a thread about heavyweights. I listed "an entire roster of guys" in the form of the copied & pasted latest edition of the WBC rankings - because the crux of my thread and the question mooted in my OP was literally asking how wide open the aisle is for Hrgović to beeline for Wilder. As for me only mentioning "a handful of the actual guys Hrgović is going to be up against" on that quest, first of all he isn't going to fight literally all 30 of the men ranked above him, that isn't how anything works. I culled the few that would appear to pose an even remote challenge (and thus be worth mentioning), regardless of their disparate positioning in those rankings. I mentioned CHARR's name in passing, you goober, in a footnote explaining why a few names were absent from the WBC top 40 (because they either hold rival org belts or are just about to actively contend for them). Got any other brilliant critiques for me to clay pigeon?