Agit Kabayel has been given until this evening to sign his contract and face an unbeaten heavyweight, who claims he is waiting patiently for the WBC champion to put pen to paper.
The Kurdish-German was elevated from ‘interim’ to full world champion in June, immediately after Oleksandr Usyk vacated his three major belts.
Prior to that, he had retained his secondary WBC title with a third-round finish over Damian Knyba, who now comes off a points victory over Andy Ruiz Jr.
Previous stoppages also saw Kabayel dismantle Zhilei Zhang, Frank Sanchez and Arslanbek Makhmudov with body shots and, in turn, establish himself as one of the world’s leading heavyweights.
In terms of his first WBC title defence, meanwhile, the 34-year-old is expected to return to Germany later this year, before pursuing unification matches with Filip Hrgovic and the winner of Daniel Dubois vs Fabio Wardley 2.
As for his next opponent, an announcement is expected soon enough after promoter Frank Warren confirmed that they were ‘moving on’ from Nelson Hysa.
According to Hysa, however, he has signed the contract and is now urging Kabayel to make a decision by close of play today.
Taking to social media, the 42-year-old offered his interpretation of the situation.
“Agit, I don’t want to play and I don’t want to waste time with you. You have started the training camp. Meanwhile, you left me without a response.
“The contract is in my hand. Since you wanted the facts, this is the contract signed by me. So sign the contract within 24 hours. If you don’t, I’ll make the contract public so everyone can see who hasn’t signed.”
Hysa seemingly emerged as a potential opponent last month, with the Albanian confronting Kabayel after stopping Thomas Narmo in two rounds.
