Agit Kabayel is the interim world heavyweight boxing champion. In Oberhausen he is fighting for his dream of the “real” world title.
It took five days until the 13,000 tickets for the fight between Agit Kabayel and Damian Knyba were sold out. The fight in the Oberhausen Arena on Saturday will be the biggest boxing event in Germany for more than 13 years. In 2012, around 12,800 spectators came to the arena in Cologne to watch the fight between Wladimir Klitschko and Dereck Chisora.
The weekend event is reminiscent of great German boxing times – and shows that the name Agit Kabayel is no longer only known to boxing experts. In recent years, the Bochum native has become not only the best heavyweight boxer in Germany, but also one of the best in the world. Three knockout victories in a row against very demanding opponents have recently increased his popularity even further.
Kabayel could write German boxing history
If everything goes according to plan, the 33-year-old could even make history this year and become only the second German to win the world heavyweight title. Until now, only Max Schmeling had managed to do this – and that was now 95 years ago. “No one was as close as me,” says Kabayel proudly. “It’s a great honor to be able to write German boxing history after so many years.”
The prerequisite for this is a win against Poland’s Knyba on Saturday. Kabayel is defending his title as interim world champion of the World Boxing Council (WBC), one of the four largest professional boxing world associations. He secured this title last February when he knocked out China’s Zhilei Zhang in round six in Riyadh.
Champion Usyk would rather fight Wilder
The current WBC heavyweight world champion is Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk. He also holds the World Boxing Association (WBA) and International Boxing Federation titles. Usyk would actually have to defend his title against Kabayel, but was exempted from his mandatory defense by the WBC. He would rather fight the American Deontay Wilder for the belt.
Kabayel would then be the next mandatory opponent for the then reigning champion, Usyk or Wilder. If his World Cup opponent does not comply with the mandatory defense, Kabayel could even become world champion without a fight. “The fact is that at the end of the day, pressure has to be put on the association and on Usyk so that after this voluntary title defense in April or May against Wilder, he is forced by the WBC to make the fight against Agit. We are then talking about a time of September or October at the earliest,” said Bernd Bönte, ex-manager of the Klitschkos and now a boxing expert, to the German Press Agency.
World Championship fight would be a “sensationally great fight”
A basic problem is that the WBC association handles its mandatory defenses “unfortunately very laxly,” said Bönte. “And that’s Agit’s problem.” But if Kabayel gets a world championship fight at the end of the year, that will be important for German boxing, according to Bönte. “It would be a sensationally big fight and I can also see it in Germany, for example in a stadium in Düsseldorf or at Schalke, where we have already organized big Klitschko fights.”
All of this is still a thing of the future. However, an important step for Kabayel is a win on Saturday in Oberhausen against Knyba. With a height of 2.01 meters and a reach of 2.18 meters, the Pole Kabayel (1.91 m) is physically superior. Knyba has remained undefeated in his 17 professional fights to date. However, his opponents were nowhere near the caliber that Kabayel has already defeated in his professional career. Kabayel therefore goes into the duel as the clear favorite.
Kabayel is also still undefeated
The 33-year-old has also remained undefeated in his 26 fights. Kabayel is a troublesome boxer known for his devastating liver punches. His path there was very hard and marked by setbacks. This included a sentence of six months in prison for grievous bodily harm.
With hard work and discipline, as well as his long-time trainer and explorer Sükrü Aksu, he boxed his way into the top of the world. His boxing trunks are symptomatic of setbacks. The father of the family wore them at a time when things weren’t going so well financially. She experienced the successes recently. “At some point I made a promise to myself: I’ll keep the pants until I box for the World Cup,” said Kabayel. Maybe the end of the year is already here.
Our sources:
- dpa
- sport.de
- Boxing Rec
- box.live
Broadcast: “Kabayel and the dream of the World Cup title”, WDR.deJanuary 7, 2016, 9:16 p.m
