Is Kabayel the biggest threat to Usyk? (VIDEO)

He deserves the fight more because he has fought more proven opponents and has been in the ring with multitudes more ranked opponents than Kabayel, and because the WBO is next in rotation and actually enforce their mandatorues unlike the WBC.

Even washed, Wilder is a better win than unproven Makh (was slightly more proven than Simon Keane, with the ancient Takam win) and crippled Sanchez. Both opponents Parker would have easily beaten also. Wilder, Zhang and Bakole also had a higher ranking than Kabayels recent three opponents when they fought.

The only way you could say Kabayel deserves it more is because his style is more interesting, which i suppose is true.

 

Yet even a 24 hour notice Bakole would be in Kabayels top 3.

You also realize this is boxing right? You can win on points.

 

Having had this back and forth a few times with you I respect your view and think that it is generally not wrong even though I see it a little bit differently. A few things:

I think you argue from a legacy perspective and with that you are right. Kabayel probably could have fought better opposition.

But from a management and economic perspective I wonder whether he really could have. After chisora I assume he was a pretty bad risk-reward value, showing definite skills and strength but still looking like a fluke of chisora's after the fight and being from germany which had became a non-boxing country at the end of the klitschko era.

So I wonder whether the legacy perspective is the correct one. A third would be the fan perspective where as far as I see the forum opinions, I only ever see the kabayel people make the argument that their fighter would provide the more exciting fight against Usyk.

I admit you could argue that recency bias is hyping kabayel a bit too much (and I don't expect him to actually win against usyk), but to me there seems to also be a popularity bias for parker going on. People have known him for forever (vs joshua, chisora, joyce etc), he is a nice, humble guy from new zealand and he is a native english speaker. None of these things work for kabayel. But also none of these things have anything to do with how much each fighter has earned their shot.

 

Usyk is what I was hoping that Gassiev would become and that is a dominant champion. Take nothing away from Gassiev, he's a good fighter, but not great. Stylistically he's perfect for boxing and especially in the higher weights. I've always preferred the seek and destroy types like Beterbiev, Kovalev, etc. That's what I think of when I think of boxing 175 and above. Usyk is great, but I prefer less dancing and want more destruction.

 

It's not just about his own legacy when I talk about legacy value, by the way - I'm not sure how clearly that comes across...
I mean from Usyks point of view, what legacy value does Kabayel bring to someone looking back in 10 years, say?

I'm not convinced by the argument he couldn't have done better, honestly...
I see where you're coming from, but even if upward steps weren't available yet, that still leaves sideways-ish steps to other gatekeepers (Jennings perhaps, or someone like Breazeale), or a step down to a bunch more international journeymen.

Even if I grant that he'd become an unappealing boogeyman (for the record, I don't, and almost never do with that argument), I still wouldn't be able to be persuaded that he needed to drop his level of opponents SO FAR, nor that he needed to stay there for SO LONG?!

The problem is, fans can be fickle (and frequently are)... The current wave of enthusiasm is something we've seen given to loads of fighters right up to the point where they lose - then everything goes quiet and the hype chasers move on.

After that happens, opinions start to stabilise around just how good (or not) a fighter was - the loss of zero ruins any fantasies that someone is unbeatable, and any egotistical attachment to having picked the big thing to follow... And so these fans jump ship over and over again, having built up their pet fighters into something they could not possibly become.

To be honest, I think the complete opposite.

You're right that Kabayel's almost certainly getting way overhyped, but we don't know how much yet...

But that's because he's more aggressive and that makes him more popular.

With Parker, I think it's just impossible to ignore or deny the weight behind his resume... He's often fairly "boring" to watch, if effective - I don't think it's fair at all to suggest popularity is driving the respect he gets at the moment as I don't think he's particularly popular.

Oh he's very respectable and decent - but that doesn't tend to fuel popularity for boxers, at least in my experience.

Indeed... What really shows how much each deserves it is the evidence on their resumes... And I don't think it's close at all.

The fact Kabayel is rightly so far up the list (even if he's miles from Parker) says a lot about the weird purgatory between eras it feels like we're in...

The interesting question is whether Kabayel will remain a footnote of the dying era, or whether he'll be remembered as active and interesting in the coming one.

Parker is a bit different - the question is only really around how much he expands on what he's already done.

 

Opetaia can't beat Usyk. He's too much of a calculator, Usyk will easily outwork him

 

Parker lost to Joshua, Chisora, Whyte, Joyce, ran it close with Ruiz, Zhang, Fury. He can't beat Usyk. Kabayel is the biggest threat not only off of his style but because we've never seen him at his limit before.

 

Thats the thing though, he has to do the best he can with the hand he is dealt. People seem to thing Kabayel has no agency in his own career where as he is the person with the most agency in his career. Germans have shown that they will turn up for boxing, the Klitschko's helped increased boxing in Germany, they didn't just get a free step into a popular boxing market.

You compare him to Parker being more popular, implying that it is somehow unfair, but this isn't by accident, its due to hard graft on Parker's side. He started in a country with considerably less money and boxing base than Germany but made a solid career out of it. In New Zealand every bigger guy with talent goes to rugby first and foremost.

For example Parker couldn't even afford to have a coach for amateur competitions and had to compete on his own. Yet he did relatively well, and wanted to be a pro boxer so for his early fights he traveled all over New Zealand hustling for any interview or exposure he could get to drum up interest in his fights off of his own back.

Then there isn't even enough boxing talent in NZ to train him or spar with, so he has to travel all the way to Las Vegas to train and then all the way back to NZ to fight. He took the hard fights, and the risks and got a good promoter who would help him get some names, and took every chance he could to sell his fights.

To eventually get a title shot he had to give a bunch of cash to Bob Arum for his next few fights, so Bob could pull the right strings. Then instead of cruising in New Zealand and living off of his title he took the risk to go to the UK and take fights there with less than favourable terms to build his profile in the UK eventually culminating in the cash out Joshua fight.

And he has still found his hunger to come back and try again, fighting anyone and everyone his whole career. Kabayel by comparison built some momentum and then let it all go instead preferring to easy fights at home. Parker could have done the same, but instead he took the harder route with all the ups and downs.

 

That is a good point you mention. I have to admit that parker is probably better for usyk's legacy than kabayel given my assumption that usyk beats both anyways.

Btw I also assume that not getting his shot against usyk might be better for kabayel's legacy because most likely he will get a title shot against someone else which he will be favorite to win.

The possible sidestep-options also raise a good point. With hrgovic I also assumed that his management wasn't willing to sponsor the good fights and I wonder whether other fighters on that level wouldn't have wanted more money than they could have made with their fights in germany but I don't really know.

 

By far

 

Agreed.

And depending on who it is, it might be justified...

Either way, that doesn't really matter because he'll have a far better chance of beating literally anyone else other than Usyk.

Well, or he could've gone on the road... But he chose to stay at home fighting no-hopers.

Hopefully he doesn't go back to that phase again, it would be interesting to see how far he could go... Or whether he turns out to have weaknesses we just haven't seen exploited yet (and to keep banging the drum, a side effect of a thin resume is the lack of quality fights that could've showed up any weaknesses)

 

Thank you Rummy for the comment concerning Joshua and Fury getting another fight with Usyk. Though he showed up like he was going to the prom at least Dubois did earn his rematch with some quality wins . Joshua and Fury have done nothing since the Usyk fight, Fury sits around whining about his loss to Usyk while Joshua had his brains scrambled by Dubois in a loss so devastating his future in boxing is murky.
It's time to drop Joshua and Fury from top 10 contender status until they earn it and place Parker and Kabayel in the rightful #1 and #2 positions .

 

I'm not drawing a parallel between Kabayel being an outstanding body puncher and Dubois' low blow.

 

Kabayel went life and death with Agron Smakici. He's no threat to Usyk

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I didn't say he would, and I don't think he would beat Usyk but he may be Usyk's biggest threat.