Agit Kabayel Wants Winner of Usyk-Verhoeven Fight
Agit Kabayel wants the winner of Oleksandr Usyk's fight against Rico Verhoeven after first reacting to the matchup as if it were out of place. The WBC interim heavyweight champion said he changed his view and now sees the bout as one for the fans, putting himself in line for the next step.
Kabayel’s first reaction
Kabayel said his first thought was that the fight was crazy, and he said he would have called WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman to ask, "Qu'est-ce que c'est que ça ?" That reaction fits the wider oddity of the matchup: Usyk is the incontestable heavyweight world champion, while Verhoeven is a 37-year-old Dutch kickboxer stepping into a world championship setting.
He then stepped back from that snap judgment. "Mais j'ai réfléchi, je me suis dit que c'était un bon combat pour les fans et que j'espérais bien affronter le vainqueur."
Usyk, Verhoeven and the belt
The numbers around the fight explain why it drew attention. Verhoeven weighed 117 kg at the official weigh-in and brings 66 kickboxing wins and 10 losses. Usyk, 39, weighed 105.700 kg and owns 24 wins, 15 before the limit, with no defeats.
The fight was announced in February by Turki Alalshikh and was set for Saturday evening in front of the pyramids of Giza. The WBC, the WBA and the IBF said it would be a world championship, and the WBC created a belt and a pendant for the winner instead of the usual belt.
Why Kabayel is waiting
Kabayel’s position matters because he is already the WBC interim heavyweight champion, so he is not speaking like a distant observer. He is looking at the outcome of a bout that mixes a boxing champion with a kickboxer and could shape the next title conversation in the division.
The unusual setup also comes after the WBC refused to put its title on the line for Francis Ngannou's fight with Tyson Fury in October 2023, when Fury won on points by two judges to one after ten rounds in Riyadh. Usyk has already fought six heavyweight world championships, beating Anthony Joshua twice, Daniel Dubois and Tyson Fury twice, and Kabayel is now waiting to see whether the winner is the man he gets next.
