Carl Froch has voiced his opinion on who Anthony Joshua should fight on August 12 after Dillian Whyte was pulled out due to returning an adverse finding on a VADA drugs test.
News broke yesterday that the rematch between Joshua and Whyte had officially been cancelled after ‘The Body Snatcher’s adverse result.
Reports suggest Eddie Hearn and Matchroom are trying to rescue the show and find a late replacement to step in against ‘AJ.’
The undercard was stacked with heavyweight action, so Hearn needn’t look far if they want someone already in training camp and ready to go. Filip Hrgovic, Derek Chisora, Demsey McKean and Gerald Washington were all set to feature next week and have all been linked to replacing Whyte.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, hall of famer, Froch, believes Hrgovic is the only option worthy of ‘saving the show’ and potentially providing the fans with a better fight than the original plan.
“AJ needs to fight. We’ve got Hrgovic-Mckean on the undercard. This could save the show. If Hrgovic can actually agree to fight AJ and AJ fancies the job, that’s a great fight.
Hrgovic is a very, very capable fighter and he will give Anthony Joshua a great test, he really would. If AJ is happy with the Hrgovic fight then I think the fans are going to win there. McKean will have to take step-aside money, nobody is going to be too upset about McKean not fighting.
Let’s be honest AJ-Hrgovic, that would be a fight that we would want to see, so hopefully that one can be a show saver, but let’s wait and see what happens, I’m not so sure AJ would fancy that.
Hrgovic would be a real acid test for AJ before he steps on to bigger and better things. I’ll be honest that is probably a better fight than the Dillian Whyte fight, hopefully that can happen, if it does I’ll be there, if it doesn’t and they get some late pony replacement, I’ll be honest I’m not that interested.”
Whether Joshua would be willing to risk a potential mega fight against Deontay Wilder in Saudi Arabia by taking on such a high calibre opponent at late notice remains to be seen.
Hrgovic would also need convincing – he’s currently in the IBF mandatory position so is next in line to face the winner of Oleksandr Usyk vs Daniel Dubois later this month.