The evening of March 8, a Friday, really is shaping up to be another ‘night of the heavyweights’ in Saudi Arabia. As fans know, Anthony Joshua will fight Francis Naggnou in the card headliner, with the equally fascinating (or perhaps even more so) fight between Zhilei Zhang and Joseph Parker to co-feature. And now, as per Turki Alalshikh, Filip Hrgovic is set to feature on the card – against one of six possible opponents.
Alalshikh spoke on The MMA Hour yesterday, and he listed the six names that are being discussed for IBF #1 ranked heavyweight contender Hrgovic to face. They are as follows:
Daniel Dubois
Jarrell Miller
Agit Kabayel
Frank Sanchez
Martin Bakole
Jared Anderson
All six possibilities are interesting, with the unbeaten Anderson perhaps proving the most exciting option. Miller as we know lost to Dubois, but “Big Baby” remains a good talker and fans would certainly watch him fight Hrgovic. While Dubois is hungry for another big fight after his stoppage win over Miller.
As for Bakole, he is a huge man and his size and weight alone would perhaps give Hrgovic some problems. Sanchez and Kabayel were recently ordered by the WBC to fight each other in a final elimination bout, so it depends which route these two wish to take.
But Hrgovic wants to stay busy and the Croatian against either of the six men listed here would make for a solid match up. Also regarding Hrgovic, Alalshikh said on The MMA Hour that if Joshua defeats Ngannou on March 8, he could fight then Hrgovic in his next fight.
“If Joshua wins (against Ngannou), then it will take a long time for the winner of Tyson versus Usyk (now rescheduled for May 18) to face [Joshua] as they’ll have a rematch,” Turki said. “We’re thinking and discussing with the Joshua camp and the Hrgovic camp to maybe have a fight between them.”
We will all have to see where the pieces fall, but the heavyweight division is really buzzing right now. Fury-Usyk is supposedly back on, Joshua-Ngannou is soon to be upon us (and Alalshikh said that if Ngannou beats AJ, he will then fight Fury in a rematch), and Hrgovic looks set for a big fight next. While for some, the Parker-Zhang fight is the big one to look forward to this year.
We fans sure have some potentially exciting heavyweight fights to look forward to.
