Agit Kabayel deserves his title shot

Kabayel fights Wardley, Usyk faces Wilder (can't call that a fight, more a mercy beating) Winners face each other.

 

I have a feeling Usyk is going to see how wild the crowd was and see some dollar signs. Or Euro signs, as the case may be.

 

Pure fantasy on my part here would be Kabayel taking the belt from Wardley then Usyk facing and beating Kabayel after Wilders corpse decomposes.

Usyk then retires a unified four belt champion.

 

Kabayel got his title shot hes the WBC interim champ. He deserves the Usyk fight but I would be surprised if Usyk fights him. Usyk has left the impression he wants Wilder/Ruiz/Parker and will be done afterwards. The only fight outside this group hes expressed interest in would be the Chisora rematch. He wants his set of late 2010s champions.


Kabayel won the EBU belt in 2016 and is part of the Fury/Joshua/Wilder/Parker/Ruiz era. But because he was avoided so long Kabayel won't be seen as such even if he goes on to be a dominant champ.

Giving up undisputed means Usyk is going to fight whoever he wants from here on out. Even if he lost all the belts hes still got the Ring. Because hes at the end of his career if pressure mounts for him to fight Kabayel hes just going to retire.

 

Usyk is clearly past his best, despite looking good against Dubois last time.
If he's talking about fighting Wilder (a man older than himself, no longer even a top 30 heavyweight realistically) and other has-beens, it is precisely to avoid losing to someone younger. I don't buy that Wilder is some kind of 'huge pay-day' fight.

And Kabayel is no spring chicken! He's probably passing his peak now too, and he's been a pro since 2011 (longer than Usyk, Parker, AJ)

 

Hrgovic called him out Yesteday

 

At the moment, yes.

If Kabayel takes another nonentity soft-touch opponent next, he'll forfeit any right to expect title fights IMHO.

 

Kabayel can't afford another non-elite opponent...

 

I have mixed opinions . On the one hand i would love to see kabayel vs usyk although i believe usyk will avoid him at any costs , on the other hand i think the stoppage was WAY to early , it looked like the referee was instructed to stop the fight on the first ever occasion .

When the 3rd round was a reaon to stop the fight for kabayel , the 1st round was a reason to stop the fight for knyba .

 

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Usyk looked better in the Dubois rematch than he did the first fight. A fighter past their past wouldn't look like that against a younger top contender who just had his biggest win in stopping AJ. Maybe he isn't at his absolute peak but Usyk hasn't regressed much. If he did rematches always show when a fighter is diminished.

 

Great interview . Knyba takes all blame on himself saying that his main fail was a lack of stamina where he needs to work on himself in future . He complains a bit that the referee stopped the fight early while he was still clear headed , especially where there were only 15 seconds to the end of 3rd round . He also said that generally the ref complained every clinch of him and said nothing when kabayel clinched , and he laughed that he did not expected this because the ref was very friendly when talking to him in the fitting room . A great move was knyba saying that nevertheless the ref , kabayel would have won because he started to dominate due to his own lacking gas tank .

 

Well, not necessarily, I don't think so. Because there are other factors.
Firstly, Usyk is a VERY INTELLIGENT BOXER who 'figures out' his opponents, and fighting someone as basic as Dubois for second time, he didn't have to take any time 'computing'.Usyk learned a lot more from the first fight than Dubois did.
(It's possibly that Dubois isn't as intelligent.)
Second, very importantly, it's not just his ability during the fight that is under question, it is MAINLY his ability to endure the training camp and avoid the injuries, to get himself into that shape where he can produce such a result. And that's what Usyk probably knows better than anyone on the outside looking in (my guess).

Wardley and Kabayel, who I'd still probably favour Usyk to win against (2026), are riskier fights than a Dubois rematch.