Heavyweight boxer Agit Kabayel crowned himself European Champion in his home town of Bochum. The 30-year-old beats Agron Smakici from Croatia to more than 3,000 fans at the RuhrCongress with a technical knockout. in the third round. His promoter sees a “fight of the century” – it’s definitely a spectacle.
The sports city of Bochum is threatened with the final blow late on Saturday evening. In the afternoon, SG Wattenscheid 09 was knocked out in the last minute. a little later, FC Schalke 04 not only sent VfL down, but also into last place in the Bundesliga table – and then suddenly Agit Kabayel also faltered menacingly. In the EM fight in his hometown, the 30-year-old was just one shot away from the abyss. He got caught in a wild flurry of punches from Croatia’s Agron Smakici on lap two and was gone for a moment.
“It flashed briefly, I saw black, but I didn’t fall over,” Kabayel confessed. In this dramatic second round, however, the local hero only stayed on his feet with the help of the ring ropes, which prevented him from tipping over backwards after several left uppercuts from the southpaw Smakici. The referee correctly rated the whole thing as precipitation, counted Kabayel – and possibly saved the evening for him. Because the referee’s intervention gave Kabayel important seconds to collect himself. Smakici’s massive attack, on the other hand, was interrupted just as the 32-year-old was about to pounce on Kabayel, who was hanging on the ropes. One lucky, the other unlucky.
Kabayel later recalled the probably most difficult minutes of his boxing career, as he felt “in the movie”: “It was a real Rocky feeling.” So it was fitting that advertisements for the movie “Creed III”, an offshoot of the Rocky series, were displayed everywhere. Like Sylvester Stallone’s eternal boxing hero, Kabayel seemed totally drained. Like Rocky, he rose and fought back mercilessly. And just like in the cinema, the “noble art of self-defence”, as boxing is called, was not on the agenda in Bochum either. The “sweet science” of meeting without getting hit was simply ignored by the fighters. Kabayel vs. Smakici – from round two it was just a battle of wills, a brutal battle of attrition.
One in which Kabayel regained control of his legs. The 1.91-meter man put away the following projectiles of his opponent thanks to his impressively hard chin. At the end of the second round it looked like Smakici had shot his powder. Kabayel’s right hand slammed into the Croatian’s face. The RuhrCongress in Bochum was raging. One minute break.
“Suddenly I was fine again. My coach couldn’t believe it, but I was fine again,” said Kabayel after the fight – marked with a cut above his right eye. Shortly before the knockout, the 107-kilogram pot colossus marched towards the opponent again in the third. Smakici hadn’t been able to recharge his batteries on the stool. The 110-kilogram, 1.98-meter giant was panting from all shafts and now got into a thunderstorm itself. In two minutes and 37 seconds, Kabayel pounded on Smakici – until the referee intervened and the one-sided knocking stopped under the cheers of the 3000 spectators in the hall. It was the only right decision.
For minutes, the battered Smakici sat in his corner, unable to get up while Kabayel scaled the ring posts. How inspired. How liberated. Heaps of coal fell off him. Not only had he won his home game, not only the vacant European Championship title, he had also shown it to his critics. They had accused him of being a boring boxer. Against Evgenios Lazaridis and Kevin Johnson, Kabayel went the full distance in 2020 and 2021 and “only” celebrated point wins. The boxer from the Revier emphasized again and again that evening how unfair he found it to be reduced to these duels.
“Today I showed that I can not only take it, but also give it out,” he blurted out at the press conference. “I’m ready, ready for anything. If someone calls and wants me for a world title fight, I’m ready.” After difficult years, Kabayel strives for higher orders, for the highest. “Bochum, we are European champions! Now we are attacking the world championship. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart,” he exclaimed after the 23rd victory of his career (15 wins by knockout) in the ring interview with thunderous jubilation. And it wasn’t just the fighter himself who was on adrenaline, promoter Ulf Steinforth, head of the SES boxing stable, was so lucky that he was so lucky that he declared Bochum to be the “new boxing capital of Germany” after a “fight of the century”.
“I’ve never seen a fight like this in my 25 years of boxing,” said the 55-year-old jubilantly on the ring. Bystanders of boxing reporting did not want to contradict. Later, when Kabayel had cooled off and Smakici was on his way to the hospital for a precautionary check, Steinforth proclaimed the “birth of a new German boxing star”. And yet, in his euphoria, the promoter tried to put the brakes on the hype. Steinforth does not see a world championship fight in the near future. “Let the boy fight regularly for now,” he said. In the past three years, Kabayel has only been in the ring once. That should definitely change. “Four times,” said Kabayel, he would like to fight a year to take the next steps.
For the 30-year-old, it should now go really far up. He wants to leave the dark times behind. He also spoke about them late on Saturday evening. “First the failed World Cup fight against Tyson Fury (end of 2020, ed.) when the contracts were already made, then the Corona period, the loneliness, that wasn’t easy for me,” he admitted. Kabayel didn’t really think about retiring, but the situation was still bad for him.
Now he is European champion, for the second time in his career, from 2016 to 2019 Kabayel held the blue and gold belt of the European Boxing Union (EBU). A prestigious title that fistfighting greats such as Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko, Lennox Lewis, Max Schmeling and Georges Carpentier once wore with pride. The reigning heavyweight king Tyson Fury was also a former European champion. Battle the big ones? She dares Kabayel. “You can count on me,” he said on Sunday night. It was not only a self-assessment, but also a declaration of war without any fear. “Fury? Why not!”
In the world rankings of the IBF (8th), WBO (13th) and WBA (13th), whose title is currently held by the Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk, Kabayel was already in the top 15 before his victory over Smakici a potential world title challenger.
music of the future. Agit Kabayel enjoyed the moment before heading to the hospital to have his cut sewn. The “Ruhrpott boy” marched to the ring in proper style to Herbert Grönemeyer’s “Bochum” on his first appearance on home soil. “You have a pulse of steel,” says the musical declaration of love to the city deep in the west: “You can hear it loud at night.” That evening you could hear many beatings in Bochum.
