{"id":397682,"date":"2026-01-09T05:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T05:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/397682\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T05:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T05:32:08","slug":"agit-kabayel-feels-like-the-boogeyman-of-the-heavyweight-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/397682\/","title":{"rendered":"Agit Kabayel Feels Like \u2018The Boogeyman\u2019 Of The Heavyweight Division"},"content":{"rendered":"

Agit Kabayel didn\u2019t expect a fight with Damian Knyba to be his reward when he knocked out Zhilei Zhang<\/a> with a body shot 10\u00bd months ago.
Kabayel<\/a> became the WBC interim heavyweight champion by beating the powerful Chinese southpaw February 22 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Another impressive victory seemed to perfectly position Kabayel for at least a high-profile fight later in 2025, if not a shot at unbeaten Oleksandr Usyk<\/a>, then their division\u2019s undisputed champion.
Though thankful for a homecoming fight in Germany on Saturday night, the 33-year-old Kabayel can\u2019t help but think top heavyweights simply don\u2019t want to fight him now that he has knocked out Arslanbek Makhmudov<\/a>, Frank Sanchez and Zhang in his past three fights. Russia\u2019s Makhmudov and Cuba\u2019s Sanchez were undefeated and Zhang had not been knocked out before Kabayel beat all three of them with brutal body assaults.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople now give me the name, [they say] Kabayel is the boogeyman of the heavyweight division,\u201d Kabayel said during DAZN\u2019s \u201cOn the Ground\u201d segment. \u201cAll the guys in the heavyweight division will not fight with me. But, you know, the situation is not easy. Usyk [gave up] the belt and now the WBO champion [is] Fabio Wardley.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I don\u2019t know, we will see after my next fight what is the situation, you know? But first I will fight with Damian. And after my fight, maybe we will see what will come in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poland\u2019s Knyba, who stands 6-foot-8, is unbeaten but unproven at the championship level entering a 12-round interim title fight DAZN<\/a> will stream from Rudolf Weber-Arena in Oberhausen. DAZN\u2019s coverage of the Kabayel-Knyba<\/a> undercard is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. GMT in the United Kingdom and 1 p.m. ET in the United States.<\/p>\n

Kabayel (26-0, 18 KOs), The Ring\u2019s No. 2 contender for Usyk\u2019s crown, is a 20-1 favorite to beat Knyba (17-0, 11 KOs) according to DraftKings. He hopes an impressive start to 2026 helps him secure the type of historically significant fight he wanted when he knocked out the 6-foot-6, 287-pound Zhang (27-3-1, 22 KOs).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is my dream,\u201d Kabayel said. \u201cI\u2019m so close, I\u2019m the interim world champion. This was always my dream. When I was a small kid, when I started boxing, the people say in Germany, \u2018Kabayel will never be a German champion.\u2019 You know? But now you see I was two-time European champion. Now I am the WBC interim champion. I\u2019m so close for the world title shot.”<\/p>\n

Keith Idec is a senior writer and columnist for The Ring. He can be reached on X @idecboxing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Agit Kabayel didn\u2019t expect a fight with Damian Knyba to be his reward when he knocked out Zhilei…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,1151,1144,1150,1149,1142,711,1145,1146,1147,1148,1143,49,48,1156,1155,1138,1136,1137,1153,1139,1135,1157,1152,82,1154,1134,1141,1140],"class_list":{"0":"post-397682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-community","10":"tag-boxing-fights","11":"tag-boxing-history","12":"tag-boxing-interviews","13":"tag-boxing-magazine","14":"tag-boxing-news","15":"tag-boxing-photos","16":"tag-boxing-rankings","17":"tag-boxing-results","18":"tag-boxing-schedule","19":"tag-boxing-videos","20":"tag-ca","21":"tag-canada","22":"tag-disqualification","23":"tag-draw","24":"tag-fight","25":"tag-fighter","26":"tag-fighter-news","27":"tag-knockout","28":"tag-latest-boxing-matches","29":"tag-ring","30":"tag-ring-magazine","31":"tag-split-decision","32":"tag-sports","33":"tag-technical-knockout","34":"tag-the-ring","35":"tag-top-fighters","36":"tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}