David Adeleye (14-2, 13 KOs) partially blamed his 10-round unanimous decision loss to Filip Hrgovic (19-1, 14 KOs) on his hitting him in the back of the head, illegal rabbit punches in their fight on Saturday night at the ANB Arena in Riyadh.
Adeleye’s Post-Fight Rabbit Punch Claim
Adeleye claims the fight would have had a different outcome if the referee had warned Hrgovic for punching him in the back of the head all night. The knockdown that occurred in the eighth round was from Hrgovic landing a right-hand rabbit punch that caught Adeleye, sending him down.
The scores were 99-91, 99-90, and 99-90.
“I was completely fine, though,” said David Adeleye to Secondsout, talking about being dropped in the eighth round by Filip Hrgovic. “The back of the head shots, the referee never did anything about it. I don’t want to be in a position where I’m talking to the referee when I’ve got an opponent in front of me.”
Adeleye’s ‘Sour Grapes’ Attitude
Adeleye’s defeat tonight had nothing to do with the back-of-the-head rabbit punches that Hrgovic occasionally hit him with. Most of the shots that he was hitting Adeleye with were legal. This just sounds like sour grapes from a fighter unwilling to admit that he fought a poor fight.
The reason he won tonight is that he threw a lot more punches, boxed, and made sure that he focused on winning each round to get the decision. That’s what Adeleye should have done, because he only time in the fight that he let his hands go was the eighth. He was knocked down in that round, so he didn’t even win that one.
David Adeleye Questions Riyadh Refereeing
“I’m asking the referee, ‘Come on, you’ve got to do something about it.’ Then I would come in, and Filip would stick his hand out and punch me in the back of my head, and the referee still wouldn’t say nothing. You’ve got other things to worry about, like your opponent standing in front of you. But I think if the referee had warned him, the fight would have been a little bit different as well.”
Hrgovic’s style of punching is one that involves chopping down on his shorter opponents, especially when they lean forward or against the ropes to avoid his shots. Surely, Adeleye and his trainer noticed that tactic in scouting film on Hrgovic. They should have implemented a game plan that involved standing tall, not learning forward or back. Hrgovic is 6’6″, and you don’t fight the way Adeleye did if you want to avoid getting hit with rabbit punches.
“Yeah, you noticed that?” said Adeleye when told that Hrgovic was leaning on him in the clinches. “But it’s funny because that’s all he was doing. As soon as I did it to him, the referee gave me a little, ‘David, don’t do that again.'”
For Adeleye to be making a major production about Hrgovic leaning on him in the clinch shows how much of a novice he is. Most good-quality heavyweights use leaning during the clinch to wear down their opponents. This isn’t cheating. It’s common practice, and it’s alarming that Adeleye complained about it after the fight. He should have been doing it himself.
“There were little things that if I did that, I don’t think Hrgovic would have seen the fifth or sixth round,” said Adeleye.
Interestingly, David doesn’t say what those “little things” that his corner was telling him to do that would have resulted in him knocking out Hrgovic.
The most obvious thing Adeleye could have done was throw more punches and stop loading up on single shots the way he’d been doing all night. He had enough power to wear Hrgovic down with volume if he’d focused on combination punching instead of trying to knock him out with a single blow.