Olympic silver medallist and former interim WBO champion Joe Joyce was scheduled to fight Dillian Whyte April 5th. However, the all British clash fell apart when Whyte pulled out with an injury. Whyte reported that it was a finger injury when at the gym he cut his finger severely from a weight. Following this, there was speculation about what would happen. Would it be rescheduled? would a new opponent be found? And we now have an answer. Filip Hrgovic teased he may be stepping in posting a video of him training on Instagram last week. Now it has been officially confirmed by Frank Warren and by social media posts from Queensberry Promotions.
Joyce vs Hrgovic
So now Joe Joyce will be fighting Filip Hrgovic which is still a very interesting fight. In fact this fight is definitely a more challenging one for Joyce and also has much bigger implications for the winner. The pair had fought before, back when both were younger and in the world boxing super series where Joyce won a split decision in a competitive fight. But since then much has changed.
Most notably, since when they last fought, Joyce is now older, slower, and has less punch resistance than before. But, Joyce still has his engine and determination to win which could play a very big factor. The reason will could really come into it is since their last fight Hrgovic’s commitment to boxing has been questionable. Hrgovic for the most part fought lower-tier competition and recently has shown to do the minimum to win fights.
Despite this Hrgovic has looked more impressive in most recent fight where despite losing put up a very good effort against Daniel Dubois. For the majority of that fight Hrgovic was able to land 1-2s and was winning. However Dubois weathered the storm and continued to pile the pressure eventually stopping Hrgovic. And therein lies the question of this fight: will Hrgovic be able to handle Joyce’s pressure? and will Joyce’s chin hold up to Hrgovic’s shots. It’s a very stylistically interesting matchup with big implications, with a win for either man getting them back in the mix on the world scene. We shall see if Joe Joyce returns to winning ways or if Filip Hrgovic will return to world level,
Lawrence Okolie Pullout
On the same card former cruiserweight and bridgerweight champion Lawrence Okolie was meant to be fighting rival Richard Riakporhe. But Okolie has also pulled out with an injury sustained in training. As it stands it’s unclear if that will be rescheduled or if Riakporhe will be fighting someone else on the card. For Okolie this was supposed to be his 2nd time out at heavyweight making his debut against Hussein Muhamed. Okolie blasted Okolie out in a round however was noticeably heavier being 260lbs compared to his cruiserweight days of 200lbs.
Okolie since the pullout has also bizarrely been ranked by the WBC as number 1. This is very odd for several reasons for starters Okolie literally just moved to heavyweight. On top of that Okolie has not fought any ranked heavyweights or any heavyweights of note. The WBC is no stranger to undeserved rankings but it’s still very strange nonetheless. Hopefully we do get Okolie against a notable name at heavyweight as his move up in weight is very intriguing.
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
