{"id":814275,"date":"2026-10-26T09:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T09:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/814275\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T09:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T09:26:13","slug":"tony-bellew-predicts-daniel-dubois-vs-agit-kabayel-heavyweight-unification-ive-seen-him-hurt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/814275\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Bellew predicts Daniel Dubois vs Agit Kabayel heavyweight unification: &#8220;I&#8217;ve seen him hurt&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A unification fight between Daniel Dubois and Agit Kabayel has emerged as one of the most interesting in the heavyweight division.<\/p>\n<p>After flying relatively under the radar early in his career, Kabayel exploded onto the scene when Saudi Arabia began to play a significant part in the sport.<\/p>\n<p>The 34-year-old from Germany impressed on the big stage and kept earning bigger opportunities, beating Arslanbek Makhmudov, Frank Sanchez and then Zhilei Zhang to become interim WBC champion.<\/p>\n<p>When Oleksandr Usyk vacated the full title rather than face him as mandatory, <a href=\"https:\/\/queensberry.co.uk\/pages\/agit-kabayel-vs-nelson-hysa-bad-blood\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Kabayel was upgraded and is now set to make the first defence of his title next month against Nelson Hysa.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Should he come through as expected, Kabayel has made no secret that he will then chase unifications, with fellow champions Filip Hrgovic and Daniel Dubois both under the same promotional banner a lot Queensberry.<\/p>\n<p>Dubois is currently in his second stint as heavyweight champion, having initially lost his IBF belt to Usyk but <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/dubois-vs-wardley-live-scorecard\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">won the WBO against Fabio Warley \u2013 and defended it emphatically in a rematch<\/a> \u2013 since.<\/p>\n<p>Should the two champs meet, Tony Bellew said on the <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/rgGFjM9oBqA?si=tzd62P52AWYHq-aT\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fight Your Corner<\/a>\u00a0podcast that Kabayel being hurt before will be enough motivation fornth Brit to win.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause I\u2019ve seen the progression Daniel\u2019s made, I make him favourite against Kabayel. I make him favourite because I\u2019ve seen Kabayel hurt, I\u2019ve seen him on the floor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDaniel\u2019s got such tunnel vision \u2013 he\u2019s so one-track minded. You show Daniel [a video of] Agit Kabayel on the floor \u2013 going down, being hurt \u2013 and it\u2019s done. [Dubois] will just keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kabayel was knocked down by power-puncher Zhang when they fought in 2024, though fought on and stopped \u2018Big Bang\u2019 with a body shot in the very next round.<\/p>\n<p>Dubois has said he is open to the fight, but is also targeting a rematch with Hrgovic \u2013 who is set to defend the IBF belt against mandatory Sanchez next \u2013 or the winner of Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A unification fight between Daniel Dubois and Agit Kabayel has emerged as one of the most interesting in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":814276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-814275","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\/814275","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=814275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}