- Filip Hrgovic has called Dave Allen 'a medium opponent, durable but without great abilities' in a BoxingScene interview 48 hours out from Saturday's IBF Intercontinental heavyweight fight in Doncaster
- Allen's response: 'If I beat Hrgovic, Tyson Fury is getting called out. Even if I lose but put a fight up, I want the Fury fight.' The home man has the most to gain and the least to lose
- Hrgovic is 19-1 with the loss to Dubois the only blemish — a win sets him up for the Itauma/Wardley/Kabayel queue, but a loss to a 'medium' opponent ends his world title chase overnight
The 'Medium' Comment
Make no mistake — calling Dave Allen 'a medium opponent' inside the same week you have to share a ring with him in front of 12,000 of his lot is a brave move. Filip Hrgovic told BoxingScene this week that the White Rhino is 'durable, don't have some great abilities, but he's brave' — which is, by the standards of pre-fight trash talk, almost polite. It's also exactly the line that will get printed and re-printed and read out in the Doncaster dressing room on Saturday evening.
Hrgovic is not wrong, technically. Dave Allen at thirty-three, with twenty-five wins and eight losses and that draw against Cojanu, is not a top-five heavyweight. He has never been a top-five heavyweight. The body has been an issue, the mental side has been an issue, and the layoffs have done the chin no favours. What Hrgovic is missing, though, is that the gap between 'medium' and 'live underdog at home in front of a crowd that loves him' is exactly the size of a single right hand.
Allen Has Done The Trash Talk Properly
Allen has played this week brilliantly. He's not pretending he's a world-beater. He's not promising the moon. What he's done instead is to flip every Hrgovic comment into a Tyson Fury callout — 'if I beat him, I want Fury; if I lose well, I still want Fury' — and that's class promo work. He's already two steps ahead of his own fight. He's already talking about the consequences of victory. And he's saying it on Sky Sports, on DAZN, on every podcast that will give him fifteen minutes.
It also happens to be true that Allen has improved. The Bayern Munich line he dropped this week — that Hrgovic is the 'Bayern Munich of boxing' — was a tell. Allen is not pretending Hrgovic is bad. He's saying Hrgovic is well-funded, well-coached, well-organised, and beatable on the day if you catch him right. That's a sharper read of the room than 'medium'.
The Skip Bayless Take
Let's not beat around the bush — Hrgovic's stoppage loss to Daniel Dubois is the only thing on his record that says he isn't a world champion. He's beaten Zhang on the cards. He's beaten Adeleye and Sanchez and Sosa and Kabayel-in-the-Olympics, depending on how you want to count it. He's nineteen-and-one and the one was against the man who currently holds the WBO heavyweight title. By any rational ranking, he is a level above Allen.
But rational rankings have never decided fights in Doncaster on a Saturday night. The Eco-Power is going to be electric. Allen's preparation has, by his trainer's own admission, been the best of his career — he's twenty pounds lighter than the Conor Goodwin draw, he's been sparring proper world-level heavyweights, and the man who showed up to the open workout this week looked like a fighter again, not a personality.
What The Fight Actually Is
Hrgovic at his best is the textbook European amateur-turned-professional — he's six-foot-six, he's got the jab, he's got the right hand, and he can land a body shot that ends nights. Allen at his best is the British heavyweight version of a Mexican fighter — he gets hit, he keeps coming, and he hits back harder than he looks like he can. The fight is genuinely about whether Hrgovic can keep Allen at the end of his jab for nine rounds. If he can, this is comfortable. If he can't, this is the upset of the year.
The Tyson Fury subplot is the lottery ticket. Both men know that the winner has a chance of being the tune-up for Fury before the Joshua super-fight in November or December. Forty million quid, easy, for whoever's holding their hand up on Saturday night. That kind of money tends to focus minds on a Friday weigh-in.
The Prediction
Hrgovic by stoppage between rounds six and eight. The jab is too long, the right hand is too sharp, and Allen — for all his improved preparation — has not historically had the chin to absorb that kind of work for half a fight without something giving. But if Allen lands a clean left hook to the temple in the first three rounds, all bets are off. He's got the power. He just needs the moment.
Either way, calling Allen 'medium' was a mistake. Allen will read it. The Doncaster crowd will read it. And on Saturday night, the Croat will find out exactly how much medium is left in the Yorkshire heavyweight when his back is against the ropes and his hometown is on its feet.