Agit Kabayel has been crowned as the heavyweight division’s latest world champion.
Germany-born Kabayel is now 33 years old and has won all 27 of his fights, with 19 of those victories coming by way of knockout.
His best win up until recent times was arguably over Derek Chisora back in November 2017 when he outpointed him in Monaco, and since then he has beaten the likes of Arslanbek Makhmudov, Frank Sanchez and Zhilei Zhang.
That saw him pick up the interim WBC world title, and last time out in January he stopped Damian Knyba inside three rounds and has long been calling for his first world title shot.
Many believe he had earned the right to take on undisputed ruler Oleksandr Usyk, but the Ukrainian instead fought Rico Verhoeven, having been granted an exception.
Usyk came through despite many people thinking he was behind on the cards when he pulled out an 11th-round stoppage win. Over the weekend, he announced he intends to vacate the WBC, WBA and IBF heavyweight titles but claims that he will have ‘one last dance’ before officially announcing his retirement from boxing.
Inn the light of that, WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman announced over the weekend that his organisation has officially elevated interim champion Kabayel to full WBC heavyweight champion status. Kabayel has since responded on Instagram.
“Unbelievable. As of today, I am the WBC Heavyweight World Champion. The first Kurdish heavyweight world champion in history and the first German heavyweight world champion in almost 100 years. Words can’t describe what I am feeling right now.
“Thank you to every single one of you for your support throughout this journey. This achievement belongs to all of us. I will do everything I can to hold this belt for a long time and add even more titles to my collection.”
Kabayel will look to be an active champion and his former training partner, Tyson Fury, has previously mentioned potentially fighting Kabayel if he were made champion, though he is still expected to fight Anthony Joshua later in the year.
