Mixed feelings. That’s what I have, mixed feelings.  I wanted to root Joshua on to victory, wanted to see him strengthen his resume, wanted to see him fight Wilder, or Joyce, or Zhang er, I mean Hrgovic.

It was a captivating spectacle, a see-saw battle between two very skilled and powerful men. It’s kind of a miracle either of them is standing.  My hat’s off to Joshua to once again learning some new dance steps and almost pulling off the three-peat.

It’s too bad and more than a little embarrassing that he did the Kanye-West-emotional-outburst after the fight.  He did gives props to the winner, but jeez, Josh, just stand there and clap.  Put a sock in it.

As  for the prospect of a Hrgovic / Usyk fight:

I may be wrong, but I don’t think he’d do well against Usyk.

But the good news on that score is that Usyk called out Fury, and said that’s the only fight he wants.  I certainly would like to see that one myself.  But sadly, Fury has reboarded the choo-choo to coo-coo land and is demanding $850 million American dollars.  And, he gave the tapeworm a deadline of September first to come up with the money.

Maybe it’s just a negotiating ploy, maybe he’s cagey like that.  Maybe he really didn’t wear a batman costume to that press conference…

As for Zhang / Hrgovic:  My man got ripped off.

I watched it a second time to be sure, and I asked a second devoted fan to look on with me and score the fight round-by-round and we both (as did the fellow working the bout for DAZN) saw Zhang winning. 

On my own scorecard, I had Zhang winning three rounds by ten-eight.  The first round via the knockdown and rounds six and nine, Zhang gave a Hrgovic such a beating that he appeared to be out on his feet.  If the ref had stepped in to stop it in either round, I don’t think it would have been controversial.  He also hurt Hrgovic in rounds 5 and 11, but I had those as ten-nine rounds. Hrgovic, on the other hand, never seemed to really hurt Zhang.

And even if made rounds six and nine ten-nine rounds, we still had Zhang winning by a narrow margin, which is what the DAZN guy thought.

Oh well, he didn’t get the title shot he wanted, but I can’t see that “defeat” lowering his stock much.  I  hope he gets to fight another contender soon. 

Chisora said he’d like to fight him.  I’d watch.