The unbeaten heavyweight contender believes Usyk’s age and difficulty adjusting to Verhoeven could carry into a future title fight
Agit Kabayel believes Oleksandr Usyk’s difficult fight against Rico Verhoeven exposed problems that could become important in a future heavyweight title clash between them. Kabayel pointed to Usyk’s age and the challenge of adjusting to Verhoeven’s awkward style after watching the fight ringside in Egypt.
“I think he is old,” said Kabayel to InsideRingShow at The Ring about Usyk. “He’s 39 years old, but I think Rico had a very unorthodox style. This was hard for Usyk. You can’t watch the fights from Rico. He didn’t understand what the plan was from Rico.
“I think this is why the situation was different for Usyk. When he fights with other guys, he has so many fights he can watch, and he can make a game plan for the fights. I think that was a problem for Usyk.”
Usyk (25-0, 16 KOs) looked unusually vulnerable during Saturday’s “Glory in Giza” card at the Pyramids before stopping Verhoeven in the 11th round. Two judges had the fight even entering the round, while another had Rico ahead 96-94 before the finish.
Kabayel (27-0, 19 KOs) was ringside for the fight and came face-to-face with Usyk afterward in what looked like the beginning of the promotion for a future heavyweight title clash. Turki Alalshikh has already publicly backed the idea of staging Usyk-Kabayel in a stadium in Germany before revisiting a possible Rico rematch.
The 33-year-old Kabayel has quietly built one of the strongest runs in the heavyweight division with stoppage wins over Frank Sanchez, Zhilei Zhang, and Damian Knyba. He believes a fight against Usyk in Germany would create an atmosphere unlike anything seen recently in heavyweight boxing.
“I think the best place is Düsseldorf in the stadium,” Kabayel said. “I think we have a place for 70,000 people. We have a lot of Ukrainian people here. We also have a very big Kurdish community here.
“In Germany, my last fight, we sold out the arena in four or five days. All the people from the UK, people working in boxing for 20 or 30 years, said to us, ‘We’ve never seen an atmosphere like this.’”