After Usyk\u2019s 11th-round stoppage victory to retain his Ring and WBC belts on Saturday in the main event of \u201cGlory in Giza\u201d in Egypt, Agit Kabayel was in the ring and called for a shot at the unified heavyweight champion next. <\/p>\n
Usyk responded by saying he was ready to face the undefeated German heavyweight next.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve waited so long for this situation,\u201d Kabayel said. \u201cI\u2019m ready. I think Germany is ready for the fight. I know many Ukrainian people live in Germany. Let\u2019s do it in Germany in a stadium. I think all the fans in boxing want this fight. Let\u2019s do it, Usyk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Usyk: \u201cLet\u2019s do it. No problem. I\u2019m ready.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kabayel (27-0, 19 KOs) is The Ring\u2019s No. 2 heavyweight and the No. 1 contender for Usyk\u2019s WBC heavyweight title. Kabayel\u2019s co-promoter, Spencer Brown, said the fight is going to be ordered by the WBC and will be next. He added that he hoped the fight would take place at the end of September or October in Germany.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere can only be one fight,\u201d Brown said in the post-fight interview. \u201cBoth agreed to it. Let\u2019s get it on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turki Alalshikh hopes to make Usyk (25-0, 16 KOs) versus Kabayel at a stadium in Germany.<\/p>\n
Boxing has commonly been billed as the theater of the unexpected, and Usyk, The Ring\u2019s No. 2 fighter pound-for-pound, nearly found himself on the wrong end of one of the biggest upsets in sports history. Two of the judges, Manuel Oliver Palomo and Fabian Guggenheim, had the bout 95-95, while Pasquale Procopio had Verhoeven ahead 96-94 heading into the 11th.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the fight hanging in the balance, Usyk\u2019s championship mettle shone through, as he dropped Verhoeven with a right uppercut with just over 20 seconds left in the 11th. Verhoeven rose to his feet on wobbly legs and walked unsteadily to his corner after spitting out his mouthpiece.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Knowing the end of the round was near, Usyk pressed the action with Verhoeven\u2019s back to the corner. As the Ukrainian flurried, referee Mark Lyson stopped the fight right as the bell rang.<\/p>\n
Verhoeven (1-1, 1 KO), who was 66-10 with 21 KOs as a kickboxer and reigned as the Glory Kickboxing heavyweight champion from 2013-25, said on social media that he filed an official protest of the result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Usyk\u2019s 11th-round stoppage victory to retain his Ring and WBC belts on Saturday in the main event…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[72640,703,184736,711,49,48,44,82,1134],"class_list":["post-694347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-object-object","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-articles","tag-boxing-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-the-ring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694347","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=694347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}