Will Usyk Fight Kabayel or Vacate the WBC title?

Vacate, Rico rematch. I'm ALL in for Rico this time. After this much ****ery of denying first Parker and now Kabayel, I just cannot root for Usyk.

 

Let's be honest, Parker hasn't given us that many good matches

 

He's not the most exciting fighter I'll give you that, there's no denying his heart and resume though. He'll fight whoever they put in front of him.

Just wish they'd hurry up with this drug allegation rather than sitting in limbo.

 

Basically the only way anyone can force Usyk to fight Kabayel is if Turki can guarantee he’ll bankroll the fight and pay Usyk an inflated purse to face Kabayel, and I don’t think Turki has much interest in the fight.

All signs point to Usyk dropping the WBC, and targeting either Rico rematch, Fury trilogy (if he gets through AJ this year), or retiring

 

Turki wanted Usyk-Kabayel to be a big event in Istanbul, but Kabayel rejected that offer and said he wants the fight in Germany.

I think Kabayel (inadvertently, of course) dissuaded Turki from bankrolling the fight, lol.

 

Agreed - Itauma is about to fight a legitimate top 10 heavyweight at the age of 21. Dronov is 24 and still plying his trade, but they definitely need to step him up because he was great in the amateurs and clearly has a lot of talent.

The same applies to Edwards, who is slightly older, but Teremoana needs to be moved up rapidly; he was an excellent amateur, is very close to his physical prime, and is 28 years of age. If they had moved Teremoana properly, he could be the one fighting Hrgovic instead of Itauma. For what it's worth, I think all 3 of them will be in the top 5 by the end of the decade.

Usyk definitely needs to fight Kabayel or vacate, but I think Turki is lining him up for one last monster 9-figure payday against Itauma within the next 12 months.

 

What was Turki thinking? Kabayel is of Kurdish descent and relations between the Turks and the Kurds are, shall we say, "complicated," to put it mildly...?

Maybe he thought it could make for a Kumbaya moment.... I dunno.....

Anyway, I'd prefer to see Kabayel and Usyk get it on .... but at this stage I'm just fine if Usyk drops the WBC belt and it gets handed to Kabayel. It's been long enough....

 

Parker could have won another 5 fights and Usyk was never going to fight him. Come on. Blaming Parker is silly.

 

Bull****. Kabayel would absolutely take an Istanbul Usyk fight. If that offer was there, he would be the last to reject.

 

Kurds make up around 20% of the population of Istambul.

 

Hmm wasn't the fight all but done? If Parker had got through wardley (which he should have).

Not usyks fault there, and wardley isn't a big draw. Usyk has been faultless to this point, but agreed he needs to take the kabayel fight or vacate asap now

 

As he should have, as the fight would generate substantially more in Germany than in Istanbul. Kabayel is not the reason why the fight still hasn’t been made.

 

No it wasn’t done

Parker went into the ring post Usyk Dubois 2 and Usyk showed no interest. Usyk was talking about rematching Joshua, Fury and Chisora

 

In addition, the WBO gave Usyk an extension while Parker waited for the fight. Even if we accept Parker losing scuppered the fight, there was no reason he couldn't face Wardley instead to keep the belt.

 

To me he hasn't even won against zhang. Still with his three wins and title he would have been one of the candidates to fight usyk. Yet usyk wasn't interested, probably because of the economic standpoint.

As long as boxing still pretends to be a sport and about merit, not a 'grab all the money you can get from cheap gimmick fights' - entertainment business (like an individualized WWE), I can not accept that stuff. (And the discussion was about whether usyk would have fought him and it didn't look like it at all)