Sükrü Aksu analyzes Agit Kabayel’s spectacular knockout triumph against Zhilei Zhang, talks about a world championship duel against Oleksandr Usyk – and compares his protégé to a boxing icon.
Sükru Aksu, coach of Agit Kabayel, has been back home in Velbert for a few days now. There, the successful coach has let the recent events in Riyadh sink in. “You work your whole life and always get obstacles in your way and still manage to get there,” said Aksu in an interview with sport.de. “It was just a great feeling.” The 58-year-old has been in the corner of the newly crowned interim champions for over a decade and has not only experienced golden times. Aksu is grateful that Kabayel has always stuck by him.
Hard hits conceded
“I probably know Agit better than almost anyone else, almost as well as his parents,” he reveals. “Agit is a clean, proper boy. How many offers do you think he gets a day to leave me? And how many smart alecks say he should change coach.” But Kabayel doesn’t do that, “and I’m grateful to him. Take and give – that’s how it is in life”.
Aksu reports that the fight against Zhang in Riyadh – the “Leberking” knocked the Chinese fighter out in the 6th round – was anything but an unopposed victory. The fighter from the Middle Kingdom landed some hard shots in round one. “Agit took punches in that round that would have knocked out many other heavyweights. Then we said: now we’re going to put the pressure on!”
High risk against Zhang
The coach was convinced that the colossus (1.98 meters, 130 kilos) would not be able to withstand this pressure – “unless he knocks someone out”. This danger was there, as in the fifth, when Kabayel had to go down after a hit (“a wake-up call”) from Zhang. But the high risk paid off. Aksu: “I used to be a right-hander like Zhang myself and adjusted Agit so that it didn’t bother him at all in the end.”
In the end, Kabayel decided the duel for the WBC interim world championship primarily through a large number of well-placed body shots. According to “Compubox”, the heavyweight from Bochum landed 149 power punches (Zhang: 66) – 63 percent of which were body shots. “Agit knows where the liver is,” smiles Aksu. “He went through the middle to the liver.”
“I thought, that’s not possible!”
In an interview with sport.de, the coach even compares Kabayel to one of the greatest heavyweight legends of all time: “I saw Agit and thought, there’s no such thing! He looks like George Foreman. Only forwards.” For him, his protégé is the modern George Foreman. “How easily Agit changes his upper body and combines punches – he did it perfectly.”
Although Kabayel is now the mandatory challenger to WBC champion Oleksandr Usyk as the WBC’s “interim” world champion, Sükrü Aksu does not yet see this big fight: “I can’t imagine that Usyk would want to fight Agit voluntarily. Usyk has said he wants to fight twice more: why should he fight us?” Because that would mean If Usyk fights Kabayel, he would have to call up even more than he did against Tyson Fury.
World Cup fight must come now
It is also possible that Usyk could resign the WBC belt instead of fighting Kabayel. The title would then be vacant – in which case the 32-year-old German could be upgraded to full WBC world champion or fight another boxer for the crown. Either way, a world title fight must come now, Aksu demands in an interview with sport.de. “We were already stalled in the last fight against Sanchez. Now they have to give us the chance.”
Even in a fight against Wladimir Klitschko if he returns, as has been speculated recently? “This is a true champion, no scandals, nothing. A great sportsman,” says Sükrü Aksu. But Klitschko could ultimately only have one motivation for a comeback. “He doesn’t need money, I can’t imagine that. But he no longer has the fame of being world champion, he wants that back.” And it’s the same for him: “I’m no longer interested in the financial side of things. I’m interested in becoming world champion with Agit.”
Text: Frank Schwantes
You can read more about Agit Kabayel in the new ePaper of the BOXSPORT app!