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The chances of boxing fans seeing Tyson Fury fight Oleksandr Usyk early next year are even lower now.
Although it's been a great year for boxing where the best have fought the best, one fight that didn't come to fruition was a highly-anticipated heavyweight title unification bout between Fury and Usyk.
There were serious negotiations earlier this year only for them to collapse with many blaming Fury. There was another attempt later on to have it take place in Saudi Arabia in December but that, too, failed.
Instead, Usyk is now defending his titles against WBA mandatory Daniel Dubois in Poland later this month while Fury faces former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou in October. The hope from the boxing world was for the pair to get through those fights as expected and eventually end up facing each other sometime early next year.
That doesn't appear to be the case anymore as Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn revealed the IBF have confirmed that undefeated Croatian heavyweight Filip Hrgovic will be named the mandatory opponent for the winner of the Usyk vs. Dubois fight.
“He [Hrgovic] needed to get that fight, he needed to be active, and also the IBF confirmed that, after the Usyk-Dubois fight, they will call the immediate mandatory now for Filip Hrgovic,” Hearn told Boxing Social. “So he will fight the winner of that next.”
Hrgovic competed on the undercard of the Anthony Joshua vs. Robert Helenius fight this past weekend where he TKO'd Demsey McKean in the 12th round to improve his professional record to 16-0.
Other than the finish, however, it was not that impressive a performance from Hrgovic who struggled with his conditioning at times. That said, Hearn believes he will deliver a much-improved performance should he get the next title shot.
“I think that he needed to jump to those kind of levels, because I feel like the level he’s boxing you’re not necessarily gonna see the best of Filip Hrgovic,” Hearn added. “You can miss the boat sometimes. He’s 30 years old. He’s still quite young, but he need to be a little bit more active and he’s ready to roll the dice now.”
Should Hrgovic be named the mandatory, it is likely Tyson Fury will receive a WBC mandatory soon after his fight with Ngannou which would further delay any Usyk meeting.
As time goes on, it looks like a golden opportunity was missed to make the fight happen earlier this year.
