IT’S rare in boxing that a replacement opponent will turn out to be better than the original, but in the case of Filip Hrgovic’s switch from Gary Cornish to Amir Mansour, this might well be the case.

Hrgovic, a hot prospect at 5-0 (4), was originally set to face Cornish on September 8 in Zagreb, Croatia, his first pro fight in his home country. This plan, however, was scuppered due to Cornish being ruled out on medical grounds.

Enter Mansour, known as ‘Hardcore’, who has agreed to fill the void. Mansour, 23-2-1 (16), is a sturdier, more consistent heavyweight than Cornish, and only last year scored a good win over fellow American Travis Kauffman. As well as this, he has beaten high-end journeymen like Fred Kassi, Kelvin Price, Maurice Harris and Dominick Guinn, and been stopped only once (against Dominic Breazeale, someone he also knocked down, in 2015).