Despite the unexpected turn of events that transpired in three-belt heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk\u2019s dramatic 11th-round TKO of massive underdog Rico Verhoeven Saturday in Egypt, WBC interim beltholder Agit Kabayel remains next in line for the unbeaten champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cKabayel versus Usyk is next,\u201d WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman told BoxingScene Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Kabayel, 27-0 (19 KOs), appeared in the ring at Saturday night\u2019s post-fight interviews at the Pyramids of Giza, and Saudi Arabia boxing financier Turki Alalshikh said he plans to stage Usyk-Kabayel at a soccer stadium in Kabayel\u2019s native Germany.<\/p>\n
Kabayel rose to pole position by going 3-0 with three knockouts in Saudi Arabia, impressing Alalshikh and the boxing masses by knocking out both Frank Sanchez (for the Cuban’s only loss) and China’s Zhilei Zhang within a nine-month stretch. Kabayel returned to the ring in January to stop Damian Knyba in three rounds. Sulaiman said he\u2019d prefer not to threaten the 39-year-old two-division undisputed champion from Ukraine who fought through a heavy heart Saturday as Russian bombing of Ukraine sent Usyk\u2019s family to shelters.<\/p>\n Verhoeven, a pro kickboxer, turned in a sensational showing, confounding the aging Usyk and taking narrow scorecards into the 11th, when Usyk first knocked down, then stopped Verhoeven.<\/p>\n Referee Mark Lyson waved the fight over after the bell closing the 11th rang, eliciting outrage from many who were watching.<\/p>\n \u201cLive, at the heat of the moment, [the stoppage] seemed to be early,\u201d Sulaiman said. \u201cRico was even winning the fight at some point.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter looking at the replays [and] speaking with [Lyson] and with a cooler state of mind, I\u2019m certain it was a correct stoppage. However, I fully understand those who didn\u2019t like it.\u201d<\/p>\n The dispute aroused some to call for an immediate rematch, but Alalshikh said that can be rectified by staging an Usyk-Verhoeven fight in Holland after Usyk-Kabayel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite the unexpected turn of events that transpired in three-belt heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk\u2019s dramatic 11th-round TKO of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,711,710,49,48,5384,254279,82,29475],"class_list":["post-697190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxingscene","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-oleksandr-usyk","tag-oleksandr-usyk-agit-kabayel","tag-sports","tag-wbc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697190","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=697190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Frank Warren, Kabayel\u2019s promoter, has implored the WBC to either force Usyk to defend his belt or to strip him<\/a>.<\/p>\n