IBF heavyweight champion Filip Hrgovic has backed Tyson Fury to defeat Anthony Joshua in their British heavyweight mega-fight on Dec. 11, claiming the latter should retire because he does not have it anymore.
“I think Fury [wins], based on Joshua’s last performance,” Hrgovic told Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show” on Wednesday (via Yahoo Sports). “You saw that [Joshua] was fighting a journeyman and he went down in 10 seconds from such a soft punch. It was crazy. I couldn’t believe what I saw. I think he’s done.
“He shouldn’t be fighting anymore. But he wants to do, of course, one more fight. I think he’s going to make a huge amount of money, and he’s doing it because of that, but I think he shouldn’t be fighting anymore.
“When I saw that last fight, I felt sorry for him,” Hrgovic added, “because [for] the fight, he said he shut all his businesses to focus on boxing. He changed his coach for the 20th time. He started to work with [Oleksandr] Usyk’s team. He did everything he could do. And then he comes to the fight with a journeyman and he goes down in 10 seconds.”
Joshua was floored twice by the unheralded Kristian Prenga in July, but he recovered to knock Prenga out in a two-round firefight in Riyadh. Now 37 years old, “AJ” has not beaten a heavyweight contender at the world level in almost three years.
Since his fifth-round knockout defeat to Daniel Dubois in September 2024, Joshua has had just two fights — first against Jake Paul last December, and second against Prenga this summer. The Brit has been battling injuries and the emotional and physical impact from a devastating car crash that took the lives of two of his closest friends.
“Yeah, [he should never fight again] based on how he looked in his last fight,” Hrgovic said. “It was a disaster, and he’s just not there. In boxing, you come to the point where — it’s not football, it’s not basketball, it’s not soccer; in boxing, you come to the point where you can’t fight anymore.
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“It’s a dangerous sport. It’s a war. And I think you come to a point where you can’t fight anymore. You can’t mess around with boxing.”
Whatever happens between Joshua and Fury on Dec. 11 — which could see the winner crowned as WBA (Super) heavyweight champion — the Croatian does not expect either man to look his way for a unification bout, believing both are past their primes.
“I don’t think [the Joshua-Fury winner wants to fight me],” Hrgovic said.
“I would be happy that I’m wrong, but I don’t think so.”
Hrgovic (21-1, 16 KOs) didn’t have much positive to say about his rival champions in the division either. The IBF king referred to the other three titleholders — Daniel Dubois (WBO), Agit Kabayel (WBC) and Murat Gassiev (WBA) — as “fake champions.”
“I feel they’re all fake champions right now. Dubois is a fake champion because he beat fake champion, Fabio Wardley,” Hrgovic explained. “Fabio Wardley shouldn’t have won against [Joseph] Parker. He was losing the fight, and I think it was a big robbery. When you beat a fake champion, you’re a fake champion as well.
“Agit Kabayel received his belt without fighting. I also think he’s a fake champion. And this Murat Gassiev is also a fake champion. He beat nobody and received his belt without fighting.”
