The IBF’s Heavyweight Nonsense Continues: Sanchez Vs. Hrgovic For A Title Opportunity Lost In The Shuffle

Frank Sanchez and Filip Hrgovic are reportedly negotiating for a final IBF heavyweight eliminator to determine a second mandatory challenger to champion Daniel Dubois.

What’s the Point?

The IBF already has a mandatory 41-year-old journeyman, Dereck Chisora, but they’re choosing to stockpile another with the Sanchez vs. Hrgovic fight. It’s a silly and utterly pointless fight.

Dan Rafael is reporting that Sanchez and Hrgovic are in negotiations for a final IBF title eliminator.  Depending on how long it takes for Dubois to fight Chisora, the winner of the Sanchez vs. Hrgovic fight could be waiting until 2026 or possibly longer before they get a title shot.

Ideally, the IBF should just wait until Chisora fights Dubois before they order their next title eliminator, but perhaps they want to be safe in case he retires. He’s not going to obviously because he wants that final payday.

Hrgovic (18-1, 14 KOs) is coming off a grueling 10-round unanimous decision win over Joe Joyce on April 5th in Manchester. There was no doubt who won the fight, but Hrgovic took a lot of punishment in that fight and looked beaten up at the end.

Filip blamed his poor performance on taking the fight on three weeks ‘ notice, but one gets the sense that Hrgovic isn’t that good of a fighter now that he’s no longer fighting ham & eggers like he’d been doing through most of his career. Joyce, 39, still had enough left in the tank to show that Hrgovic isn’t what some fans had thought of him.

That was the second fight in a row in which 2016 Olympic bronze medalist Hrgovic took a bad beating. In his previous fight, he lost to Dubois by an eighth-round TKO last year on June 1st.

The Cuban Frank Sanchez (25-1, 18 KOs) is coming off a third-round knockout win over journeyman Ramon Olivas Echeverria (18-25, 12 KOs) on February 22nd in Tijuana, Mexico. This was a confidence-booster for the 32-year-old Sanchez after he had been stopped in the seventh round by Agit Kabayel on May 18th last year.