Filip Hrgovic has sent out a warning to Daniel Dubois after their recently announced fight, recalling what happened during a sparring session between the two men in the past.
Hrgovic is long overdue a shot at heavyweight gold, more specifically a shot at Oleksandr Usyk’s IBF title, but it seems as though he will instead fight for the vacant belt, with the winner of Tyson Fury vs. Usyk expected to drop the strap shortly after their undisputed bout.
As a result, Hrgovic could become Croatia’s first ever world champion and to do it in the heavyweight division would be quite the achievement.
However, he will have to go through Dubois if he is to complete his goal, following the announcement of their clash on the Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol undercard, which takes place less than ten months after the Brit challenged Usyk for the unified titles himself.
During the DAZN coverage of the Beterbiev-Bivol press conference, both Dubois and Hrgovic spoke of a spar they shared during training camp and the latter warned that if ‘Triple D’ has not improved since then, their battle could be over quickly.
DD – “We had a spar a while back and he keeps talking about that. So I’m just going to show him that people change, I am a different animal now.”
FH – “I hope that he has changed, because if he hasn’t then it will only last a few rounds. I hope that he has changed man, that sparring wasn’t good for him so I hope you have changed.”
The fight will take place on June 1st in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, accompanied by five other 50/50 affairs on the bill.