Knyba, though untested at the top level, is 6\u2032 7\u2033, in his physical prime and entered the ring with zero losses and everything to gain.<\/a><\/p>\nHe started busy, swarming Kabayel and landing effectively, damaging the interim champ\u2019s right eye within just two minutes. Knyba\u2019s uppercut was the standout shot of the first round, and the reach disadvantage looked to be a tricky puzzle for Kabayel to solve.<\/p>\n
The German settled into more of a rythym in the second, finding a home for his infamous body shots and taking the steam out of Knyba\u2019s work. Kabayel opened a cut on the challenger in the third and snatched the momentum entirely, putting Knyba on shaky legs via a series of overhand rights in the final minute and not relenting until referee Mark Lyson stepped in to halt the action. Many will recognise it as an early stoppage, even if it did look inevitable.<\/p>\n
What next for this German star?<\/p>\n
When he asked the crowd who they would like to see him face, chants of \u2018Usyk\u2019 rang out. Kabayel confirmed the unified champion is who he wants.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wait so long for this title shot. I beat three monsters in Riyadh Season. Give me the world title fight. I\u2019m ready. Really I\u2019m ready. Let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manager Spencer Brown doubled down on the call out:<\/p>\n
\u201cWherever you are, we\u2019re ready. Come on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oleksandr Usyk has been granted a voluntary defence by the WBC and is currently in negotiations with Deontay Wilder.<\/a> Kabayel, unlikely to sit on his hands, is therefore frustratingly facing another defence of his interim title in the meantime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Agit Kabayel scored a third round stoppage against Damien Knyba in his homecoming fight at the Rudolf Weber-Arena,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-363545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}