The mood Tuesday at Eco-Power Stadium in Doncaster, England, was straightforward, practical and even a bit jovial – free from the usual bluster and back-and-forth we’ve grown accustomed to at these events.
What a delight.
It was the opening pre-fight press conference ahead of the Filip Hrgovic-Dave Allen heavyweight bout scheduled for May 16 at those same football grounds, and none of the main parties involved seemed all that interested in trying to prop up the event as something greater than what it is – a big fight for Allen in front of his hometown fans and a stay-busy placeholder for Hrgovic.
“To be honest, I wasn't expecting this kind of fight,” said Hrgovic, 19-1 (14 KOs), who is ranked in the top seven by all four sanctioning bodies. “I was calling out names like Fabio Wardley or a rematch with Daniel Dubois, or to fight [Agit] Kabayel In Germany, or I was hoping for that kind of fights. But in the end, this fight was at the table, and it was a great deal offered from Queensbury, and I accepted.”
For his part, Allen, 25-8-2 (20 KOs), was realistic about where he fit in among the class of heavyweights Hrgovic had both been eyeing and has already faced. At the same time, he ceded no ground in the matchup.
“In comparison to Dubois and [Zhilei] Zhang, I can’t punch for toffee – I mean, I’ve got no power at all in comparison,” Allen said. “I’m not a big puncher at the highest level. I’m clever, I’m tough, I’m awkward. I think, with Filip, I’m not gonna try and knock him out. I want to irritate him. I’m gonna make him miss, I’m gonna push him back. He’s gonna turn up on May 16 and think he’s in for an easy night, and when we get two, three, four, five rounds in, he’s gonna think, ‘Wow, I can’t really hit this fella.’
“A lot of people in boxing – the [Oleksandr] Usyks, the [Tyson] Furys, [Anthony] Joshua – go and ask them about me. They’ll tell you, ‘He’s a very good fighter on his day.’ And if I have my best day and Filip turns up anything short of 100 per cent, I’m gonna beat him.”
Hrgovic, whose only career loss came in 2024 when he was stopped by Dubois in an interim title bout, has since rallied back with wins over Joe Joyce and David Adeleye. He said he doesn’t even rate Allen among those latter two fighters, and he apologized in advance to Doncaster for his plans to “ruin the party.” If anything, what impressed Hrgovic most about Allen is his drawing power.
“I just got on my mind one story,” Hrgovic said. “I was reading his article – he gave some interview few years ago, like, I think he was going to retirement. And he said, ‘Boxing was great to me. I did this, I did this, I bought a house.’ And I was like, ‘What the fuck, man?’ He said, ‘I bought few houses from boxing.’ At that time, I still didn’t have my house. I was like, ‘What the fuck? How this guy bought a house from boxing, and I still don’t have house?’
“It’s not easy to be Croatian in boxing in heavyweight division and be top five in the world, coming from small Croatia, without any history in boxing. … Imagine if I’m from Great Britain, man. I would be a superstar!”
At that, Allen couldn’t help himself. With a twinkle in his eye and a stand-up comic’s timing, he stirred his finger and extended an invitation to his rival:
“I’ll take you around Doncaster later,” he said, “and you’ll understand more, I think.”
Even the fight promotion’s title – “Dave vs. Goliath” – doesn’t bother pulling any punches. “Very appropriately named,” said Queensberry’s Frank Warren.
“It's a big opportunity for Dave to go and do what he feels he can do,” Warren said. “So I was listening to him talking out there, and he was saying he's only trained properly for two fights in his career. And you look at him now, this is the fittest I've seen him, and he looks really well, so he's got plenty of time now. So you know he's going to be at his best – and he's going to have to be at his best, because he's with a top-class, world-class heavyweight in Filip.”
Allen has rarely lived the fighter’s spartan lifestyle in the past – yet another reason, perhaps, the English fans seem to embrace him as a working-class, everyman hero. The event emcee took note, like Warren, that a lean and fit Allen appeared to have shed his past jolly, chubby disposition.
“I’ll still be jolly,” Allen responded in his best deadpan. “I’m a jolly guy. Hopefully not chubby – but definitely jolly.”
In his more serious moments, Allen declared his admiration for Hrgovic but noted that he has already shared a ring with plenty of respectable heavyweights, including Luis Ortiz, Tony Yoka and Dillian Whyte. If it mattered that each of those fights ended in defeat for Allen, he wasn’t slowed by the notion.
“I'm full of respect for Filip,” Allen said. “I think he's a fantastic fighter, one that I'm proud to be in competition with. But I've got no fear of him.”
Maybe that’s all that matters in this matchup – that Allen shows up, throws caution to the wind and takes his best swipe at Hrgovic. That’s all Doncaster can ask of him, and Hrgovic says he is expecting nothing less from his opponent.
“I'm not gonna take him lightly,” Hrgovic said. “I know he’s brave guy, durable guy. And I know he's coming to fight, so I'll do my job.”
