The action-packed light heavyweight fight between Joshua Buatsi and Callum Smith may have set a high bar but Agit Kabayel and Zhilei Zhang produced fireworks aplenty themselves as 'The Last Crescendo’ card in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia continued to live up to every bit of the pre-event hype.

Kabayel (26-0, 18 KOs) won an exciting heavyweight up and downer via sixth-round stoppage to become the WBC interim heavyweight champion, having recovered from being floored for the first time in his career to register Zhang's (27-3-1, 22 KOs) first stoppage defeat.

Kabayel - Ring Magazine’s No. 5 ranked heavyweight - has been one of the success of Riyadh Season but has remained just off the radar of the division’s leading lights despite quietly and efficiently going about his business and taking the unbeaten records of Arslanbek Makhmudov and Frank Sanchez.

At 6ft 3in tall and 241lbs, the 32 year old German is by no means a small man but in today’s age of giant, super heavyweights his speed of foot and cleverness made Makhmudov and Sanchez look pedestrian.

Although he did have to tailor his approach to suit Zhang’s southpaw style, Kabayel unsurprisingly picked up where he left off against Sanchez last May, circling the ring and pot shotting but Zhang made an aggressive start, stepping across Kabayel and making his mark with a well picked left hand and a hard right hook.

Ring Magazine’s No.4 ranked heavyweight, Zhang - who scaled 287 1/2lbs - is a giant, heavy handed fighter with excellent timing but - at 41 years old - the Chinese fighter can find it difficult to pin down a moving target.

He didn’t have that problem for long. Whether he decided that he needed to drain the older man’s tank or whether he felt confident having tasted Zhang’s power, Kabayel dispensed with his tactics almost immediately and tried to push Zhang back at the start of the second.

The high risk tactic saw him land plenty of snappy shots but it also put him directly in line for Zhang’s short replies.

Kabayel is one of the heavyweight division’s best body punchers and he made a concerted effort to attack Zhang’s body in the third. The high risk plan worked. Zhang’s punch output dropped and he began to breathe a little more heavily. Kabayel reddened the right hand side of Zhang’s body with one solid left hook after another.

Contrary to almost every pre-fight opinion, Kabayel had turned the fight into a pitched inside battle. Zhang enjoyed success with short uppercuts but by being so close, Kabayel had smartly removed all of the bigger man’s leverages and his faster hands got to the target more quickly. Kabayel scored to head and body regularly.

Sometimes, close is safe, sometimes it isn’t.

Zhang looked tired and uncomfortable as the fifth started, backing away as Kabayel scored regularly. All of a sudden, Zhang held his feet and dropped Kabayel with a chopping left hand. Hurt but unfazed, the German fighter got up, took the count and got straight back onto the attack and bossed the remainder of the round.

Suddenly after absorbing a hard right hand to the pit of the stomach early in the sixth round, Zhang sagged and turned away. Referee Mark Lyson shepherded Kabayel away from a suddenly uninterested Zhang.

The split second respite seemed to snap Zhang back to his senses and the action resumed but Kabayel could feel rightly aggrieved at having had a potential fight ending moment snatched away from him.

Still, Kabayel realised his moment had arrived. He jumped straight back into the action, dug hard to the body and persuaded Zhang to drop to the canvas and stay there. He made a belated effort to get to his feet but Lyson stopped the action. The official time was 2.29 of the round.

Once again, Kabayel proved himself a master of gameplanning. He has walked a dangerous path to become the WBC interim title holder and can now patiently wait for full WBC and heavyweight unified champion, Oleksandr Usyk, to decide on his plan of action before finding out when he will get his shot.