IBF Mandatory Filip Hrgovic denied title shot for the 4th time - IBF president confirms

Being a mandatory is in the eye of the beholder apparently. For some its irrelevant for others it's birthright being stolen lol. Just depends on which side of the argument your guy falls.

 

Haha, okay, fair enough
To be honest, that read a little stronger than I intended. I obviously don't follow all the divisions closely. Does anyone. I'm a fan of the popular fighters in the lower divisions, but I couldn't tell you who was who, and certainly not who is ducking who

I do however follow the heavyweights relatively closely so I'm able to remember what happend when over the last decade. Beyond that my memory gets fuzzy. I can reel off mandatories and who generally fought who to get into what position. Hence I know when fighters like Whyte or Hrgovic are getting screwed
Even if it is not always popular on here to raise such issues.

 

Very true, though I'd like to think some of us side with the mandatory challenger, not because it's our guy, but it's the right thing to do from a sporting perspective

 

There is a slight difference in the situations though.
Pulev wanted to wait in the hope that Joshua got the title back. Whereas, Hrgovic wants to fight Usyk ASAP.

Also Ruiz Jr. as a voluntary had no choice but to sign the rematch clause. Whereas, Usyk and Fury before him were mandatories so effectively keep voluntarily signing on to rematches.

Finally, Ruiz Jr. 2 was dealt with a 6 month delay for Pulev, COVID-19 created an involuntary delay. Whereas there is nothing involuntary about the lengthy delay Hrgovic is facing.

 

I posted this on the other thread, but it seems appropriate here:

Hrgovic beat Zhilei Zhang

How did previous challengers earn a title shot?

Dubois - beat Trevor Bryan
Whyte - beat Oscar Rivas
Usyk - CW undisputed
Pulev - beat Hughie Fury
Breazeale - beat Eric Molina
Povetkin - beat Christian Hammer (?)
Joshua - bought the shot, but beat Whyte
Parker - beat Carlos Takam (?)
Fury - beat Christian Hammer
Wilder - "beat" Malik Scott

Hrgovic did more than most

It is wild to suggest Dubois deserves a second title shot when he didn't really deserve the first one. Warren just did an amazing job with the back end politics and position of his fighter.
Parker deserves his high praise, but it also needs noting that he has twice gone after the WBO mandatory position, first against Joyce, then against Zhang. He avoided Hrgovic when offered the fight. So hard to justify him leap frogging in the order of IBF then WBO

 

Anyway, I think there isn't much else to say on the topic beyond 1032 days is hard to justify whether you like Hrgovic or not. Enjoy the weekend guys.

 

Hey Finlel
I tell you what, if he beats ddd I think he deserves a shot. But as it stands Nah.

 

That is stupid but has nothing to do with Hrgovic and shouldn’t stall his title opportunities

 

It is to do with Hrgovic if he is going to fight Dubois for the vacant title.

It highlights how ridiculous the situation will become if the IBF stripped Usyk of the title for honouring a two-fight deal that went with the Fury vs Usyk bout that they themselves sanctioned.

If the IBF had an issue with this then they should have refused to sanction the fight in the first place and stripped Usyk of the title for agreeing to fight Fury.

But then they would look ridiculous for not recognising the winner of Fury vs Usyk as the champion.

The only way the IBF can have any credibility in this is to continue to recognise Usyk as the champion which they appear to have done.

 

If Hrgovic was the stand out challenger in the division I'd understand it a bit more.

But AJ v Usyk, Usyk v AJ, Fury v Usyk and Usyk v Fury are clearly much bigger fights and against better opponents than Hrgovic.

Not sure why Dubois got a shot above Hrgovic, that's a bit iffy. But every other fight has absolutely been the right one to make.

Look at the divisional rankings

Usyk
Fury
AJ
Parker
Kabayel
Zhang
Hrgovic

Hrgovic isn't an outstanding contender who's been ducked or passed over, he's a low ranked guy who's secured a mandatory shot.

In fact this is a similar situation to Canelo. No one thinks he's ducking Schull. He isn't in a position to warrant jumping the queue, mandatory or no. But Benavidez is the next best SMW, plus he has mandatory status and Canelo still won't fight him even though it ticks every box (Mando, big challenge, big fight).

Let's have some consistency instead of just wanting the situation that suits your guy.

 

They should make this an IBF interim as a compromise. Usyk gets to keep undisputed and Hrgovic(or Dubois) gets his hardware. Everyone wins. Hrgovic v Dubois is a title caliber matchup.

If Usyk, Fury and AJ are going to retire in short order, Hrgovic v Dubois is a worthy matchup to decide a successor. When the day all 3 retire actually comes there might be a struggle to find a clear replacement and having 1 champion waiting in the wings when Usyk carrys the other 3 belts to retirement is the cleanest way to solve this inevitable succession issue.

 

And how exactly does this benefit Hrgovic who's been waiting or his shot for how long? Also there was controversy with the Dubois-Usyk fight so him picking up the belt isn't the end of the world.

 

No they won't. You misses that they make an official statement before Usyk - Fury 1, because they already gave Usyk exemption to fight for the Undisputed.
They made it clear they are sanctioning the fight, but Usyk has to defend his IBF belt after the first fight, against their mandatory.

This was IBF official statement. The fight since then was postponed TWICE by Fury, and moved 6+ months later.
So no, if IBF doesn't strip Usyk, they will look like s****.
Also they postponed the fight from October to December.
Last mandatory was Pulev, which was in 2020. The time their mandatory get a title shot, it will be 2025, which is 5 years.

I'm 100% certain they will strip him, but it won't be for the Dubois - Hrgovic fight, as they IBF never order that fight. This was done by Turki.
They will order their number 1 to face number 2(3 in that case) for the vacant belt. It will be the winner of Dubois/Hrgovic vs Anthony Joshua and it will be in September at Wembley.

 

In fact I've been too generous to Hrgovic there.

He won his mandatory shot against Zhang and since then has had two low level fights to preserve his status.

Since then Usyk has had two fights, a Mando against Dubois and a unification with Fury.

Hrgovic needs to hit sit on his Mando spot and actually earn a top ranking

 

Usyk going to be stripped 100%.
While i'm huge Usyk fan. It's his own fault. As he has acted like a sheep the whole time. Good that he become Undisputed, but he essentially waste 2 years of his career chasing Fury and being highly inactivate because of him. He won't ever get that time of his career ever. He is 38 in a few months, and it's close to being shot of what he was.
The moment he beats Fury, he should have either retire or tell them to f**** off with the rematch, cause of all the time he wasted chasing the ducker.

Neither Parker, neither Hrgovic, neither Kabayel careers has to be put on wait, cause Usyk and his team are being foolish, and stubborn.

It would have been a travesty if the IBF has stripped Usyk before the Undisputed, but that fight already happen and we had a clear winner. So Usyk either had to defend against his mandatory or he needs to be stripped.
He is already achieved what he wants, no need to hold the division hostage, and Fury to get a second chance for free. He has to earn it, if he wants to become Undisputed. Not win all the belts in 1 fight.