Eddie Hearn has revealed that a fight between Oleksandr Usyk and his IBF mandatory Filip Hrgovic will be ordered soon.
Usyk’s last fight was a controversial ninth-round knockout of Daniel Dubois on August 26th, 2023. The Ukrainian overcame an alleged low blow in the fifth round to retain his WBA, WBO and IBF titles. As a result, the talk turned towards a potential undisputed fight with Tyson Fury. And yet, Hearn made it clear that he expects the IBF to call the mandatory.
After all, Hrgovic has already confirmed that he will not accept step-aside money. Meanwhile, Fury will face Francis Ngannou on October 28th, 2023, which rules out an exception being given.
“That fight will be ordered this week, in my opinion, Usyk against Hrgovic. What happens now is that Usyk will have the opportunity to request an exception to fight someone else. The only person that the exception would be granted is probably Tyson Fury. But because Tyson Fury already has a fight scheduled you can’t ask for an exception, so I think that we should just get it done, get the fight made for December,” Hearn