Heavyweight contenders Frank Sanchez and Agit Kabayel have been added to the undercard of the May 18th fight between champions Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The addition of Sanchez vs. Kabayel helps beef up an interesting undercard and gives fans a fight between two guys on top of their games. If the main event between Fury and Usyk fails to deliver, the Sanchez-Kabayel fight could save the card with the action this clash should provide.
Kabayel (24-0, 16 KOs) is coming off a surprising fourth-round knockout win over previously unbeaten heavyweight contender Arslanbek Makhmudov last December on the ‘Day of Reckoning’ card in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Going into that fight, many boxing fans predicted that the heavy puncher Makhmudov would make easy work of the 31-year-old Germany-born Kabayel. However, Kabayel exposed Makhmudov’s weakness in taking body shots and broke him down quickly by targeting this area to drop him three times.
Before that win, the best victory on Kabayel’s 13-year professional resume came against Dereck Chisora in 2017, when Delboy was still in his prime but not in the best of shape and not ready to deal with the mobility of Agit.
The 31-year-old Cuba-born Frank Sanchez (24-0, 17 KOs) is coming off a seventh-round knockout win over Junior Fa last December. It was a good victory for Sanchez. However, Fa had lost two of his previous three fights coming into the match, which took some of the shine away from Sanchez’s win.
Sanchez’s other notable wins during his seven-year professional career have come against Efe Ajagbag, Christian Hammer, and Carlos Negron.
Fury-Usyk undercard:
Jai Opetaia vs. Mairis Briedis
Joe Cordins vs. Anthony Cacace
Mark Chamberlain vs. Joshua Oluwaseun
Sergey Kovalev vs. Robin Sirwan Safar
Isaac Lowe vs. Hasibullah Ahmadi
David Nyika vs. Michael Seitz
Moses Itauma vs. Ilja Mazencev
The undercard’s gem is the match between former IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia (24-0, 19 KOs) and Mairis Briedis (28-2, 20 KOs).
Opetaia, 28, defeated the 39-year-old Briedis two years ago by a 12-round unanimous decision to capture his IBF and Ring cruiserweight titles in a real war. Since then, Opetaia has beaten Jordan Thompson and Elis Zorro by early knockouts.
There’s been talk of Opetaia moving up to heavyweight soon to broaden his horizons, which would be a good move for him.