Filip Hrgovic has been comparing his performance against Daniel Dubois with Anthony Joshua’s.
Hrgovic was the experienced and well-ranked favourite going into his fight with Dubois back in June 2023. The contest was part of the 5 v 5 card that saw Matchroom take on Queensberry in a battle of the promoters out in Saudi Arabia, but it ended in disaster for the big Croatian as he was stopped inside eight rounds.
In the build-up, Hrgovic spoke at length about what he perceived to be Dubois’ defensive and mental frailties, but none of them showed up on fight night. Speaking to The Ring Magazine, he broke down what went wrong and admitted he underestimated his opponent.
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“I took him too lightly and underestimated him, thought it’d be a much easier fight for me. I lost my energy after five or six rounds, could hardly see his punches coming from the second round, had two deep cuts and they affected my vision, my focus and gave him confidence to push me.”
He then shared what he thinks were the shortcomings of his tactical plan and compared them to the way in which Joshua was also beaten by Dubois back in September – believing they both gave ‘DDD’ to much space to launch attacks.
“I made a mistake giving him too much space to move forward, should’ve pressed him more to go backwards, needed to block his jab and move my head more. I was too confident that one big right would land and he’d go down, Joshua made the same mistake by letting him come forward, trying to catch him with counters, we both did the same.”
Hrgovic looks to rebuild on April 5th when he takes a short-notice fight against former WBO interim heavyweight champion Joe Joyce in Manchester. A loss for either man would be a huge setback at this stage of their careers.
