Yes and the whole Parker deserves the fight more is maddening as he beat a washed wilder and Bakole on 24 HOURS notice. Not to mention he danced around Zhang and just tired him out (still got dropped twice in the process) while Kabayel went straight at Zhang in a constant and fearless fashion and DEALT with him and had him gasping for air.
Zhang is 600 years old. A win over Zhang proves nothing, for Parker and Kabayel. Usyk blows both of them to bits.
If we are honest , dubois performance that night was not #2 , not even #100 . Coming off a party ( for his own undisputed fight !!! ) unfocused , a stationary target , simple punch combinations , predictible defence ... That version of dubois would easily be stopped by kabayel , aj or hrgovic . It appeared as he knew before he even entered the ring that his only job that night was to quickly loose .
And, unpopular opinion, but it'd be Kabayel's fault if they don't. Not because he's not willing - think he'd be right up for it. But because right now he offers very little in legacy terms - those years feasting on bums between Chisora and Zhang mean he's spent most of the last ten years considered as a bit of a joke... And if he lost to Usyk and went back to bumfighting, history would remember him as a flash in the pan hypejob - it would have zero legacy value then. And who's to say he wouldn't waste years on dross? He's done it before...
Sorry to say but this is a bit silly . Kabayel has faced 5 times more opponents than usyk at heavy ( no joke ! ) and if he after makhmudov , sanchez , zhang and a 2017 version chisora is a pure bum fighter - what Is usyk after whitherspoon , 2020 version chisora and incredible performance dubois ? his only very respectable wins are aj and fury . I,m not calling usyk here a bum fighter , but calling kabayel a bum fighter is also not correct . The only reason why usyk ducks kabayel so hard is his fear to loose against him . And yes ... his bodywork and his heart is dangerous , would be a good fight
Yeah, I've been saying Kabayel and Opetaia are the biggest threats to Usyk for a while now. Neither beat him, IMO, but they give him likely his toughest fights at HW.
He's not calling him a bum fighter. He's talking about those years following the Chisora win when he should have been capitalising on getting better fights but instead languished in the wilderness fighting guys like Rudenko and Smakici. Pretty obvious from reading the post.
Depends on Kabayel's footwork. He would have to turn into a heavyweight Roman Gonzalez to track down Usyk imo.
I think he's second in line behind Parker for most deserving challenger I dont really see either as a threat. That's not a knock on those guys I just think usyk is in a class of his own right now without an obvious foil I honestly think Fury is a more dangerous fight than the others but he's already lost twice
Sorry, but I think it's pretty inarguable... But then I would, I guess - that's why we're all entitled to our own opinions (however silly yours is ). Kabayel has fought two gatekeeper+ opponents, a couple of overhyped journeymen and a lot of Euro level journeymen... Usyk has fought the two best in the division twice each, plus one of the next guys towards the top of the tree. The quality isn't remotely comparable - volume doesn't prove much if the vast majority of it lacks quality. I didn't say he was a "pure" bum fighter - I said that years of feasting on bums made him a joke proposition... Which he was until he fought Makh and Sanchez, massively overhyped though they are, and then Zhang. After Chisora in 2017, Kabayel's next run of opponents looks like this... Rovcanin, Rudenko, Lazaridis, Kevin Johnson (shot), Sour, Smakici. That takes us up to 2023 (Makh). When I said "those years feasting on bums", I really wasn't exaggerating. Oh and by the way, he went to the cards against three of them. This isn't a guy who screams legacy - he looks like he's probably pretty good, but the depth of evidence isn't there... And there's no guarantee he'd go on to build it afterwards if he lost. It's kinda funny saying Usyks "only" respectable wins are AJ and Fury as if beating the two clear frontrunners in the division doesn't go 99% of the way to establishing undeniable dominance over that division. Usyk very clearly isn't a bum fighter. Kabayel's record is mostly bums, with a couple of very overhyped journeymen in Makh and Sanchez, plus two good wins against inconsistent Chisora and Zhang... It's not nothing, but it doesn't add heaps to Usyks legacy as it stands. I mean, it's just nonsense to say "Usyk ducks Kabayel so hard" when he's been busy fighting guys who have proved so much more. And although it would probably be a good fight (if a bit one sided), the simple fact is that the risk-reward doesn't add up - Kabayel doesn't really bring legacy (yet, and may or may not in future), he doesn't bring game changing money either... Parker might not bring silly money either, but he has a much deeper resume and has been relevant for a long time - in legacy terms there's simply no comparison, and that's the point.