Filip Hrgovic: “I Swear On My Father’s Name, I’ll Come To Beijing And Beat Him [Zhang] In Front Of 1 Billion Chinese People!”

Filip Hrgovic, who is close to an IBF mandatory title shot at WBA/IBF/WBO heavyweight champ Oleksandr Usyk, says he is more than willing to go to China for a rematch with Zhilei Zhang, so he can “beat him in front of 1 billion Chinese people.” Hrgovic, speaking with IFL TV, said that when he defeated Zhang in August of last year, this via debatable 12 round decision, he did so “on my worst night.”

Now, happy that Zhang has shown he is the “real deal” by beating Joe Joyce – “destroying him” as Hrgovic put it – the unbeaten Croatian had a lot to say about Zhang. While Hrgovic, 15-0(12) also had some choice words for promoter Frank Warren.

“It was a close fight (with Zhang), but I beat him clearly. I won eight rounds. In my head, I won eight rounds, he won four rounds and he had that knockdown (over me) in the first round,” Hrgovic said. “And one thing about that fight – before that fight, my father passed away. We were really connected and I had the worst time of my life. And I had a new coach for that fight, I started to work with Ronnie Shields. So, even on my worse night, I beat the guy who just destroyed Joyce. Let’s [me and Zhang] do a rematch at the end of this year. What about that; I’ll come to Beijing and beat him in front of 1 billion Chinese people. I swear on my father’s name, I’ll go to China and I’ll knock him out. On my best night, he’s not going past six rounds.”

There is no doubt, a return fight between Hrgovic and Zhang would be most interesting, but Zhang has ideas of fighting Tyson Fury, while “Big Bang” may have to rematch Joyce if Joe activates the rematch clause. But it shows the confidence Hrgovic has, what with him laying down this challenge to Zhang. Maybe Hrgovic did have a bad night in Saudi Arabia – it was certainly a pretty odd fight between he and Zhang that night.

Some experts wondered if Hrgovic was suffering from the effects of jet-lag in the fight, so laboured was his performance at times. We await both Zhang’s next fight and Hrgovic’s next fight with great interest.

As for the choice words Hrgovic had for Frank Warren, here is what he had to say:

“Frank Warren was telling a lot of shit after my fight with Zhang. He talked a lot of shit,” Hrgovic said. “What can he tell me now? I destroyed Daniel Dubois in sparring and now his fighter got beat by the guy that I beat. I want to ask him one question – why is he producing only hype jobs? Frank, you asked why I was considered a boogeyman. Now you see why I was considered a boogeyman. Because on my worst night I beat Zhang and he came to London and he destroyed your fighter in six rounds. That’s why I was considered a boogeyman.”

It will be interesting to see if Warren responds to what Hrgovic has had to say. But this is how the heavyweight division so often works: a fighter (Hrgovic) has a bad night, and he is all-but written off, or a fighter (Zhang) scores one big win and all of a sudden he is the next big thing.

Zhang’s win over Joyce sure stirred things up in the division.