Agit Kabayel was greeted with a hero\u2019s welcome in his Germany homecoming bout, and responded to the atmosphere with a third round TKO win over Damian Knyba to retain the interim WBC heavyweight title and remain undefeated.<\/p>\n
Kabayel stoppage not without some debate<\/p>\n
The stoppage from referee Mark Lyson was a little premature, probably, but it definitely did appear as though Kabayel (27-0, 19 KO) had taken over the fight after struggling a bit with the reach of Knyba (17-1, 11 KO), but the Polish underdog really had just the one idea, and once Kabayel accepted it and started doing what he does, attacking both the head and body, Knyba appeared to be fading rapidly.<\/p>\n
That said, Knyba wasn\u2019t dropped, he was only wobbled when referee Lyson stepped in. It\u2019s possible Lyson heard and\/or saw something we can\u2019t from the TV angle, and it\u2019s generally wise to defer to a referee, or at least consider their viewpoint, but Knyba was given no chance at all. The smart money was on Kabayel getting him out of there, but you can\u2019t help but feel for Knyba a bit, too.<\/p>\n
Kabayel vs Knyba highlights<\/p>\n
What\u2019s next for Kabayel?<\/p>\n
Kabayel asked the audience who they want next, and the overwhelming response was Oleksandr Usyk. For some goofy reason, DAZN\u2019s interviewer offered Tony Yoka as an idea, which would stink.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve waited so long for a title shot. I\u2019ve beaten three monsters in Riyadh, give me the world title fight. I\u2019m ready,\u201d he said, making clear what he wants next.<\/p>\n
Oberhausen atmosphere was electric<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the best atmosphere I\u2019ve been at in boxing since I\u2019ve worked in boxing, and I\u2019m not just saying that,\u201d Queensberry Promotions\u2019 George Warren said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve experienced Wembley Stadium. The noise, and I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s coming across on TV, it is deafening.\u201d<\/p>\n
We can confirm for Warren that the noise came across on TV. The atmosphere in Oberhausen was unbelievable for this fight and for Kabayel, and those fans made a good fight \u2014 short, but good \u2014 even better. The fans were the loudest we\u2019ve heard for a boxing show in years, frankly \u2014 when Warren says it was that special, he\u2019s not doing any of the normal boxing promoter exaggeration. That\u2019s legit.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s two straight weekends, following Amanda Serrano in Puerto Rico last Saturday, that we\u2019ve been reminded of what a main event fight sounds and feels like when the fans in attendance actually care about what\u2019s happening, something that has become increasingly and unfortunately rare with the shift in boxing promotion following Turki Alalshikh\u2019s entrance into the sport.<\/p>\n
One thing Kabayel definitely was able to prove today is that there is an audience for his fights in Germany, and you have to expect they would travel in good numbers to the UK for any potential big fight there, and there are plenty of names, including WBO titleholder Fabio Wardley, which could be a phenomenal slugfest matchup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Agit Kabayel was greeted with a hero\u2019s welcome in his Germany homecoming bout, and responded to the atmosphere…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,2986,85],"class_list":["post-405443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-results","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}