A little under a year ago, Tyson Fury said there were two men in the heavyweight division he had no intention of fighting.
One was Joseph Parker, the other was Agit Kabayel. The reason was the same for both, with Fury telling The Mirror that he considered both “brothers” and “lovely guys,” having extensively trained with both men in the past, and that he “won’t fight either man for any amount of money, because some things ain’t worth fighting for.”
It was a fair stance. Fury wasn’t and isn’t short
on people he can make big money to fight, and if he doesn’t want to do it against someone he considers a genuine friend, that’s fair enough. The idea of Fury fighting Kabayel had also come up years prior, before Kabayel had really broken through as a serious contender and was operating at the European level, and it was understood then, too, that Fury just didn’t have interest in facing his friend.
But boxing does have its ways of enticing fighters to do what they’d perhaps truly rather not, and the developing situation with the WBC heavyweight title may be enough to change Fury’s mind on fighting Kabayel.
Kabayel has been ordered into a WBC title fight against Oleksandr Usyk. The sanctioning body has given the two until June 30 to make a deal before it goes to purse bids. And as mentioned earlier, there is a chance that Usyk will vacate the title in order to go after bigger money in a rematch with Rico Verhoeven.
If that were to happen, and Fury’s planned mega-fight with Anthony Joshua falls apart somehow — and there are various ways it could — then Fury, the WBC’s No. 1 ranked contender, could find himself ordered to face Kabayel for the WBC title, which Kabayel would be upgraded to holding from his current interim status.
Fury also spoke to iFL TV about potentially fighting WBO titleholder Daniel Dubois.
On the potential of fighting Agit Kabayel
“I’m No. 1 ranked with the WBC again, if (Usyk) pulls out of the fight with Kabayel, then I’m in with Kabayel. If the Joshua fight doesn’t happen for whatever reason, then I’ll get my shot at (becoming) three times (world champion) against Kabayel, and I’ll take it to Wembley. … Kabayel’s a big destroying man, who I’ve known from being a young lad. And helped promote him, manage him, look after him, everything. That’d be great.”
On Daniel Dubois as a possible option
“Yeah, of course, I’d fight anybody. I don’t give a shit, man, who I fight. I thought Dubois did a beautiful job in his last fight against Wardley. It was an unbelievable fight, by the way, congratulations to both men. They knocked the shit out of each other.”
