As Tyson Fury continues to struggle to find an opponent for his planned summer outing, Eddie Hearn has publicly offered one of his heavyweights for the fight.
The likes of Demsey McKean, Andy Ruiz Jr and Jai Opetaia have all been linked to a money spinning clash with ‘The Gypsy King’ – and that’s just in the past week.
And, in an exclusive interview with Boxing Social, Hearn claimed he would be more than happy to put IBF ranked No. 1 heavyweight, Flip Hrgovic, in with Fury, should the WBC world champion be at a loose end.
“Say you’re playing matchmaker for Tyson Fury, and you look at the rankings. Imagine ‘AJ’ fights Dillian Whyte then Wilder and Usyk fights Dubois. I’ll tell you if he wants, he can fight Filip Hrgovic.
If he’s looking for an opponent, he can have the Filip Hrgovic fight. Tyson Fury is smart, he doesn’t want a risky fight.
Hrgovic is mandatory for the IBF, but Tyson will say “I’m not fighting him, nobody’s heard of Hrgovic!” But there will always be a line.”
Hrgovic earned his status as mandatory challenger with a razor thin points victory over Zhilei Zhang in Jeddah last August, and has not boxed since.
Although he is guaranteed a shot at the IBF title at some point provided he avoids defeat, ‘El Animal’ is unlikely to get his shot in the near future, with champion Oleksandr Usyk due to face WBA contender Daniel Dubois next.
As for Fury, talk of a fight against Anthony Joshua has fell away as quickly as it started, with promoter Frank Warren this week confirming – to no one’s surprise – that the generational all British heavyweight dust up would not be happening next after AJ wasn’t prepared to derail his Deontay Wilder plans on the hope that Fury’s offer was genuine.