Heavyweight IBF mandatory contender Filip Hrgovic (17-0, 14 KOs) made short work of his stay-busy opponent Mark De Mori (41-3-2, 36 KOs), scoring a quick first round TKO victory on Saturday night in their scheduled ten round fight on the ‘Day of Reckoning’ card at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Moments into the fight, 31-year-old Hrgovic landed a right hand to the head of De Mori that bowled him over. De Mori, 41, then staggered to his feet the action resumed.
Hrgovic then teed off with a series of textbook rabbit punches, showing beautiful form with these illegal shots, causing De Mori to turn his back and cover up in a ball, leaving the referee, Mark Lynson, with no choice but to halt the contest. The fight was officially over at 1:46 of the first round.
Ideally, it would have been better if Hrgovic hadn’t thrown punches to the back of De Mori’s head, as he didn’t need that to win this fight, but oh well, that’s how it goes.
Hopefully, he doesn’t throw those types of punches when he challenges for a world title because you’d hate to see him get penalized or disqualified. In Hrgovic’s previous fight against Demsey McKean, he’d hit him with rabbit punches, finishing him off in the twelfth round last August.
With the win, the 2016 Olympic bronze medalist Hrgovic is poised to fight the winner of tonight’s Anthony Joshua vs. Otto Wallin fight for the IBF title if it becomes vacant or Jared Anderson potentially. The IBF belt is expected to be vacated by the winner of the Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk fight in February.