Daniel Dubois isn’t cringing in fear after hearing the warning by unbeaten heavyweight contender Filip Hrgovic ahead of their fight this Saturday night on the 5V5 event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Hrgovic Attempts to Intimidate Dubois
IBF mandatory Hrgovic (17-0, 14 KOs) was trying to intimidate the 26-year-old Dubois (20-2, 19 KOs) this week to throw him off his game for their twelve-round clash, live on DAZN PPV at the Kingdom Arena.
Hrgovic, 31, the 2016 Olympic bronze medalist, needs to scare Dubois enough to make him afraid to throw punches. His IBF mandatory will be at stake for their fight.
In some ways, this is the riskiest fight of Hrgovic’s career becaue he’s not faced a heavyweight contender with the blend of size, speed, power, and youth that Dubois possesses.
If Hrgovic loses to Dubois, he can forget about a big money title shot against undisputed champion Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury, or Anthony Joshua.
The soon-to-turn 32-year-old Hrgovic would be starting from scratch, and it’s taken him seven years to get to this point in his pro career.
Even then, Hrgovic already lucked out with a controversial decision over Zhilei Zhang in 2022 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, that many boxing fans had him losing.
That was by far the best opponent Hrgovic has fought to date, and he clearly lost but the judges gave him a very, very questionable decision. I had it 10-2 in favor of Zhang. It was a total mismatch. The A-side fighter Hrgovic got beat up, dropped, and dominated by Zhang.
It’s a good idea for Dubois to focus on getting a knockout just to be safe. The last thing Dubois wants is to leave it up to the judges to interpret the results of the fight.
Dubois Aims for a Knockout
“Let’s find out about who has heart,” said Daniel Dubois to Queensberry, responding to Filio Hrgovic’s trash-talking ahead of Saturday’s fight in Riyadh. “Let’s put this c*** to sleep.
“I want you to be like that so I can counter you,” said Hrgovic. “You should be aggressive. You should come forward, and I counter you and you’re going to sleep.
“No way,” said Dubois.
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