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Forgotten heavyweight can steal the spotlight on the fight card of the century after roller-coaster career
The 'Tortoise and the Hare' is one of Aesop's most revered Fables.
To the uninitiated you have a vainglorious and boastful hare who lays it on thick to the other animals about how fast he can run.
He challenges them to a race and when none of them step up to the challenge – being the showman that he is - he taunts them. When the Tortoise finally offers to race him the Hare scoffs that he won’t even waste his time racing the slowest creature in the world.
Anyway, to cut a long story short they race and after a flying start, the hare takes his eye off the prize and ends up falling asleep in the sun. He sleeps for so long that the Tortoise is able to overtake him and win the race. Trust me there was hell on but the main premise to the fable is that sometimes slow and steady wins the race.
Speaking of slow and steady, has there been a more bizarre heavyweight career that that of Agit Kabayel?
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The German can fight for fun and looked to have arrived in 2017 when he beat Derek Chisora in Monte Carlo.
Ignore the official cards for that European title fight in the plush surroundings of the Principality, which were ridiculously close on the night.
Kabayel won by scores of 115-113 and 115-114 to earn a majority decision, with the third judge scoring it a 114-114 draw. The truth is though, he won that fight comfortably and hardly anyone has a ‘comfortable’ night against War Chisora.
Kabayel signed a co-promotional agreement with Top Rank in 2019 and it looked at that point like – to use one of my favourite malapropisms spoken by the irascible Arthur Daley in Minder – the world was his lobster.
Press releases from promotional behemoth Top Rank from the time assured us that his talents would be showcased Stateside. However, he never did make it to the US and he would actually box just once a year between 2018 and 2022, with all of those fights happening in Germany and most (if we are being honest) against extremely low-level opposition.
That type of inactivity usually means one of two things. Either a fighter has stuff going on outside the ring and may not be living the life. Or that his people don’t really have enough belief in him to push him on into title company. So it was a shock when he battered the feared Arslanbek Makhmudov inside four rounds in 2023.
If memory serves the German was a 6/1 underdog but upset the odds makers by making mincemeat of then-unbeaten Makhmudov in four rounds. His body punching in that breakout win was particularly impressive.
To prove that was no fluke he stopped another touted unbeaten heavyweight prospect in the shape of Cuban stylist Frank Sanchez last time out and again did so inside the distance after winning by KO in round seven.
He has been a pro since 2011 – feels like he has actually been around longer than that -and yet his WBC interim clash with Zhilei Zhang on Saturday will be just his 27th pro contest.
It’s astonishing that such a capable heavyweight blessed with ring intelligence and eye-catching punch fluidity has been kept in the shadows for so long. However, if he can stop ‘Big Bang’ Zhang in Riyadh on February 22 he is going to be impossible to ignore any longer.
There’s a lot of hype currently around Kabayel and it is mostly justified. He’s been off grid for years but much like the tortoise in Aesop's Fable, he can now see the finish line when a lot of his higher profile rivals (Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury to name but two) are in decline.
His rise, and the fact that the land of the big men is also now haunted by the spectre of a boisterous Martin Bakole demolishing people left, right and centre, makes for an intriguing heavyweight landscape in 2025.
Kabayel does not even have a nickname – and I’ll wager he would not appreciate ‘The Tortoise’ moniker – but don’t rule out him stealing the show again with another punch perfect display at the Kingdom Arena.
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