The German boxing hope sees ways to victory in a possible showdown with the heavyweight king.
Germany’s heavyweight boxing hope Agit Kabayel sees himself as a contender for a possible world title fight against three-time champion Alexander Usyk. “I don’t know if I’m his biggest nightmare. But he’ll have to deal with my style. I’ll definitely draw him into deep water and see if he can swim. He knows that too. Whether my style is his kryptonite remains to be seen. Everyone up there knows that Agit Kabayel is in for a hard day’s work in the ring, that this is not easy money,” he said in an interview with sport.de and RTL/ntv.
Kabayel has held the WBC interim world title since his knockout victory over Chinese boxer Zhilei Zhang last February. This entitles him to a fight with Usyk, who holds the WBA, WBC and WBO world championship belts. Kabayel had previously already stirred up the boxing world with hard body shots and some impressive knockout victories.
However, Usyk is reportedly eyeing a clash with IBF world champion Daniel Dubois (Great Britain) in order to regain undisputed champion status. Kabayel is also cautious about an early fight. “I don’t think I’ll fight Usyk next. My gut feeling is that he’ll do something else first. But we have to be in the pipeline, we have to be at the starting line. At any time, one of them could drop out and then we’re right in the thick of it,” said the Bochum native.
Kabayel believes that his lack of a world title shot is also related to his boxing style. ”I think these body shots are very difficult to avoid and cover. A lot of people can’t handle that, not even Usyk, so you have to call a spade a spade,” he said. ‘Usyk can’t handle it, we’ve seen that in the past, even in his amateur career: he doesn’t like being hit in the body.’
