Filip Hrgovic says heavyweight David Adeleye made a “bad move” by choosing to fight him this Saturday, August 16th. He believes he’s going to KO the big punching fringe contender Adeleye (14-1, 13 KOs), and make him regret taking this fight.
Hrgovic (18-1, 14 KOs) vs. Adeleye are fighting in a scheduled 10-rounder on DAZN PPPV on the Moses Itauma vs. Dillian Whyte undercard in Riyadh.
Hrgovic Calls Adeleye’s Fight a “Bad Move”
“Was he shaking? I think that’s a hell of a bad move for him. We’ll see if he made a good decision or bad, but I’m confident in beating him,” said Filip Hrgovic to BoxNation about his fight against David Adeleye on Saturday. “He’s a decent heavyweight, but not a top 5 championship-level guy.”
Adeleye wasn’t the one who chose Hrgovic. That was his ppromoters that made this fight, and we’ll see if they made the right decision. It’s a wild gamble that they’re making, but you kind of understand why they did it. Hrgovic’s loss to Queensberry fighter Daniel Dubois in 2024, and the problems he had beating another one of their heavyweights, Joe Joyce, gave them confidence that Adeleye might get lucky.
“Maybe people are writing me off because I looked really bad in the Dubois fight. I was sick, injured, and cut from the first round. Then I went to the Joe Joyce fight on three weeks’ notice, and I didn’t look spectacular. I was good, but nothing special because I was out of shape,” said Hrgovic. “Maybe he [Adeleye] thinks I’m old, but I think he made a bad decision. We’ll see.”
The eighth-round knockout loss to Dubois diminished Hrgovic’s popularity, and he made things worse by struggling in his last fight against 39-year-old Joe Joyce on April 5th. Although he won that fight by a 10-round unanimous decision, he didn’t look good and appeared fleshy. He wasn’t in the best shape.
“Yeah, of course, I’m coming for a big KO,” said Hrgovic when asked if he thinks he’ll knockout Adeleye.
Inexperienced Adeleye vs. Hrgovic
There is an excellent chance that Hrgovic will knock out the inexperienced six-year pro Adeleye on Saturday. The Queensberry-promoted Adeleye lacks the experience in the professional ranks to beat a seasoned fighter like Filip. This is really Adeleye’s amateur career that he’s having now, as he only fought once before turning pro.
He’s in the same boat as another Queensberry heavyweight, Moses Itauma, who didn’t have much of an amateur career either. In his case, he’s being hyped like mad despite fighting even worse opposition than Adeleye.
If Hrgovic blows David out of the water on Saturday, hopefully, his promoters will start over with him and bring him along the way they should have by matching him slowly against increasingly better opposition rather than throwing him into the deep waters with sharks like Hrgovic.
Adeleye is a decent prospect, but he had no business fighting anyone at this level. We’ll see that on Saturday night when he gets plundered by Hrgovic.
Last Updated on 08/12/2025
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