Is Agit Kabayel Past His “Physical Prime?”

@Kiwi Fish I don't think he would be "easily" able to compete at cruiserweight. That would kill him and make his punch resitance gone.
Also he comes from an ethnicity that is naturally "big", they have no problem carrying a bit of extra weight and it does not really bother their cardio either. I don't think cruiser is a good idea ata ll.

 

He obviously has a good groove in heavyweight and competes well there. I'm just saying he is not a naturally big guy for heavyweight.

He's only about 20lbs heavier than someone like Opetaia's walk around weight and Opetaia stays pretty lean between fight, so if he cut down to Opetaia's body fat he would be the smaller guy.

 

Speed doesn't matter when you're coming forward and beating a man's vital organs to a pulp

 

He plants and digs, you have to sacrifice speed for that. So time your punches to compensate for that, and that's what he does. He is the only guy who can challenge Usyk imo

 

He's nowhere near a cruiserweight, that's an absurd idea.

 

There's this old idea that you are past your physical prime at 30 but it's more complex than that and we're seeing that in the real world with how many athletes are not peaking until there 30's or older.

Reflexes/reaction time peak around 24 and then slowly decline. Speed and power too peaks around the mid 20's and then generally slowly declines. So the idea of peaking in your 20's and then declining physically seems to be proven if we only look at reflexes, speed and power.

But strength doesn't tend to peak until around 30-35 years of age and endurance too doesn't peak until your 30 and can be sustained well into your 30's though stamina tends to decrease.

So Kayabel is probably slower, less explosive but he's probably physically stronger now than when he fought Chisora and also has better endurance and stamina. He's likely adapted his style as he has aged too, sitting down more on shots to take advantage of that strength and perhaps able to sustain a higher and more consistent out put due to better endurance and stamina.

 

He is prime enough to be avoided by usyk who prefers to fight dubois and jake paul ...

 

He is ~20lbs heavier than someone like Opetaia and is easily carrying 25-30lbs more fat than him, not unfeasible that he could have competed at Cruiserweight. Obviously not now since he is clearly good in heavyweight, but he is definitely not too big to have started his career there.

 

He hit the scene around the same time Parker so pretty much whatever you think the timeline for Parker is.

Everyones different but I think a fighters prime is generally done by 34-35 even if they haven't declined much. Even if they are still good enough to win its hard to argue a fighter in their late 30s is at their peak. Barring a unique situation like Archie Moore. Someone being good enough to win a belt at 40 something doesn't mean its the peak of their physical capabilities. Thats late 20s.

Right now the whole timeline of a fighters career has been pushed back by the structure of the sport. Guys reach the top level later they fight for belts later they defend their belts later and they are defending against guys from their generation longer. And that last ones can really mask a fighters decline because they aren't declining relative to their opponents. AJs only 35 but he went from fighting guys his age to Dubois and it was night and day.

 

What's really interesting when you think about this (and it's a superb post, thanks!) is that in some regards... Well, a fighters style could impact where their prime is likely to be (setting aside how individual biology varies and how the difficulty of a fighters career path/resume goes can knock fighters younger) because which attributes are peaking and when defines the age their peak performance is at.

So for some fighters, as you say for Kabayel, aging can improve them... For some who rely heavily on reflexes and speed, the opposite may well be true (it might well be that, for example, Hamed's cards were always marked for that reason, even without his knackered hands).

Fascinating stuff.

 

He's certainly into his boxing prime, so who cares? He's looking dangerous lately, and I'd give him the best chance of beating Usyk out of all active HWs.

That performance against Zhang impressed the hell out of me. Walked right up to the biggest puncher in the division and beat him senseless. Got knocked down once, what happened? Changed nothing, went right back to what he'd been doing.

 

You are one sick human.

 

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