What's the ceiling for Agit Kabayel?

What's Kabayel's ceiling? He's in a 50/50 fight with a guy who turns 42 this year. I'd say it's about the height of a kindergarten playhouse .

 

It has to be said that Zhang looks unusually effective for 42...
And he's not particularly shopworn because until the past 3 years he's either been fighting amateurs or jobbers.

Kabayel's just a weird one - he's been around an awful long time and his best win by far (Chisora) is quite a few years behind him... It makes me cautious about the hype when someone's been around that long and wasted so much time without making good fights.

 

Generally I agree with being cautious of hyping up these sorts of fighters but Kabayel is a real one, I first learnt about him from the Chisora fight, since then it's been clear to me he has real skills but just couldn't get the matchmaking he deserved (until Turki came along).

That's why in 2020/21 when they were rumouring Fury would fight Kabayel (before he got forced into Wilder 3 in 2021) I genuinely thought it could be a real banana skin because Kabayel is no bum (unlike Wallin).

Zhang is one of my favourite fighters right now but unfortunately I think Kabayel outslicks and outsmarts him. And even if Kabayel does lose to Zhang (which I don't think will be the case) he will look pretty good against him.

Father Time catches up with everyone, I think Zhang is sadly on his way out, but Kabayel will become WBC interim champ if/when he beats Zhang and he will be a future world champion once Usyk retires / if Usyk vacates the WBC.

 

Chisora is his best win? Sanchez and Makhmudov were still fighting the likes of Mariusz Wach, Erkan Teper and Christian Hammer.

Makhmudov just lost against a journeyman.

Zhang will be Kabayel's first real test, a man in his 40's. I am surprised people rate him this high.

 

Zhang

 

Kayabels going to be looking up at the ceiling Saturday when Zhang flattens him

 

They're very mediocre wins - very overhyped fighters.

The problem is precisely that they're not step up fights - he should've been stepping up 7 years ago after beating Chisora... The fact that that's still easily his best win shows precisely that he hasn't been stepping up.

Against dross, it certainly looks that way.

We'll see whether it still does against better fighters who ask more questions, give him less time to react and might well hurt him in the process... He might go from looking really solid to not that great in no time against better guys.

Having skills and fundamentals is great... But it's just so much easier to look first rate against deal opponents that it doesn't really tell us more than that their skills, respectively, stack up well below the elite levels.

Will it transfer into wins against top guys? I don't know, we'll have to see them make those fights to find out.

Yes, it's a shame he's not been in better fights... And he's not obviously ducking those like some we could name.

And again - Mak and Sanchez aren't really proper tests... But they are/were overhyped fighters that have helped raise his profile - and will help us find out whether he's all that or not.

Zhang is a huge huge step up from those guys - and we'll find out whether it's too much of a jump when we see the fight.

Agreed - it's not the end for Kabayel even if he gets sparked out... But it should put the brakes on the hypetrain until he finally beats someone serious.

Absolutely - if that happens it'll take some effort to recover his profile again... But if there are good fights in the process, rather than overhyped mediocrities, then I'm all for it.

 

One of the reasons I'm as cautious as I am, here, is it's so long since he beat Chisora... And he's done nothing close to that since.

7 years since he last beat a proven gatekeeper level fighter is a long time - and when you've not been competing at that level, it's easy to not be prepared to go back to it and beyond.

Quite possibly, we'll never know.

Also a bit unfair to call Wallin a bum - he's a solid gatekeeper... And if Fury had been anyone else (barring possibly AJ) he'd have been stopped and lost because of that cut.

We'll see - Zhang's been fighting at a far higher level in the recent past.

Unless it's an early KO, you're probably right and Kabayel will probably look decent... But that's just Zhang - he either gets a KO and otherwise looks mediocre, or he gets a KD or two but gasses too badly to win on points.

Father time was on top of Zhang before he even fought his first proper (non-jobber) pro fight - it's easy to forget that he hadn't beaten a single top-200 fighter before the Hrgovic fight.

It's possible that Kabayel gets a belt for a little while... Ultimately, though, at the moment he's nowhere near proven enough to favour over the likes of Parker or Dubois, and he's not going to outlast either of them on the scene - DDD is far younger and Parker is only 8 months older... So it's hard to see him keeping a strap long term without ducking.

 

When Usyk retires, his chances are the same as the rest of the fighters who are at the top, he is definitely on the level of Parker...