Agit Kabayel deserves his title shot

Don't get me wrong he is on a good streak but he gives 'coming' then 'leaving' the picture to a extent.

I find that quite bizarre from an up and coming fighter. Hopefully Itauma doesn't do the same. Its unbelievable how sparsely Itauma fights for a prospect.

 

Exactly...

Equally, if his next defence of his interim title is against another no mark like Knyba or Hysa, I'm going to need convincing that he's not looking very likely to do exactly that.

My gut is already very uneasy about him going from his best win to a fighter with zero international pedigree as a pro.

Whilst true that he came from the wilderness a bit... That's partly because he was considered a bit of a joke as a result of his bum spree.

The other problem, to some extent, is that all three of these opponents are somewhere between overrated and comically overrated:
- Zhang is dangerous, but he's literally 50/50 against anyone remotely decent... Overrated.
- Sanchez has proved very little for the reputation some want to give him - he's a lower level gatekeeper at best, to me.
- Makh has been comically overrated.

These aren't bad wins, especially Zhang - but listening to some go on about how deserving Kabayel is, you'd think he'd blown through three top contenders, when it's a stretch to even say he's beaten one.

I agree, it's nice to have different styles available at a good level - it keeps things interesting, sets up triangles, etc.

TBH that doesn't especially bother me - it wouldn't bother me if none of the top guys were English speakers any more than if all of them were.

Ps.
Usyk is at a way higher level and clearly isn't a native English speaker.

 

1 in my mind i see that boxing in business-weak countries forces certain paths. Kabayel was invited as a probable victim for chisora and surprisingly won the fight. After that someone would have had to pay to have good opponents over, i assume. Money that is easily made in england but probably not for a non-klitschko germany-based fighter in germany. So cheap events with cheap opponents it is. I can't really assess how much more of a challenge would have been possible, though. Just a possible explanation in the back of my mind.

2 Zhang is 50-50 against anyone decent (meaning at least weak contenders i would assume) but only over the course of 12 rounds. The fighters who won against him generally were knocked down and won via decision (questionably in the case of parker and hrgovic both of which had to massively survive and are not known to be just anyone decent). Noone else took the fight to zhang and fought him head on in the portion of the fight where zhang was still fresh and strong. Gas tank isn't as much of a matter in the first half of the fight, where hrgovic and parker were dead lost (admittedly zhang was a bit younger). Not to speak of what he dead to joyce (but he was a good matchup for Zhang). The zhang win is not overrated. It's better than wardley's parker win via questionable ko while losing on the cards and parker fighting a mediocre gameplan, which is his only claim to have his current title (apart from the huni win). And noone complains about him having the title - in contrast to kabayel maybe getting a shot.

With makhmudov I doubt i overrate him, but the way kabayel fought and beat him is impressive.

And for overrating this series of wins: i don't hear people putting these win in a historic context. Just in the current one and outside of usyk with parker having lost it is by far the best series of wins at heavyweight right now. And if that doesn't qualify you for a title shot then what does. Noone else has as good a resume over the past few years. It doesn't have to be great to be the best. Just better than the competition. And it is.

3 i am for all aspects that make boxing work like an actual sport should. And equal opportunity is high on that list.

Usyk is a unicorn, a special case where he is way above everyone else in skill and had the great luck to get the cruiser tournament and the shot at joshua for whatever reason (probably because he didn't look to dangerous against chisora and witherspoon and the wilder fight didn't materialize).

The fact that non english speaking countries are completely missing seems to indicate that individual skill is Not the factor driving success in boxing. The olympics have many other countries winning medals at super heavy for years. Where are they.

It took hrgovic a while to get good opponents i think. Someone put out the theory a while ago that that might have cost him some of his drive.

Boxing would be better off if there was more equal opportunity and it's a big part of why i cheered a lot for usyk. If he would go doen at the goat, which is questionable, it might help the issue.

I will be cheering for frenchmen, poles, russians, ukrainians, uzbeks and so on if they come close to top 10 heavy. Jalolov annoys me though :-D