An interesting heavyweight match-up will take place in Magdeburg, Germany on Saturday night, as unbeaten contender Agit Kabayel will face Evgenios Lazaridis for the WBA Continental belt. Fans will be allowed to attend the show, with a reported seating capacity of 1,000 people. The fight will go out on ESPN.
27 year old Kabayel, 19-0(13) is perhaps best known for his wins over Dereck Chisora and, last time out, in March of last year, Andriy Rudenko. Kabayel won the EBU title in 2017 and he has retained it three times. A good all-rounder with decent punching power, Kabayel is certainly a heavyweight contender well worth keeping an eye on.
Lazardis, aged 32 and born in Greece now living in Frankfurt, Germany, is a tall guy at 6’6” (Kabayel being three-inches the shorter man) and he has been stopped just once in his 16-2(10) pro career. The stoppage defeat came at the hands of Samuel Kadje in 2018, while his other defeat came on points to Erkan Teper back in 2017. Lazardis’ best win is probably his corner retirement win over Denis Bakhtov from last September. Lazardis last boxed in November, when he picked up a UD over Kostiantyn Dovbyshchenko.
Saturday’s fight is quite a tough one to pick. Kabyael may be rusty having been out for 16 months, while not too much is known about Lazardis. Kabayel and his supporters believe he can go all the way to the word title. Maybe he can. ESPN may well pull in a healthy audience on Saturday. With so little live action taking place, a heavyweight fight featuring a biggish name is most welcome.
Kabayel has to be the pick to win but how he gets his victory will prove interesting. A pro since June of 2011, Kabayel has boxed all but five of his fights in Germany (the others taking place in Monaco, Turkey, Serbia and Poland) and it’s likely plenty of U.S fight fans know relatively little about him. Let’s see if he can punch out an impressive win on Saturday night.
