Klitschko vs. Chagaev this Saturday

By Matt Stein: IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko will be defending his titles this Saturday night against replacement opponent Ruslan Chagaev at the Veltins Arena, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Wladimir’s previous opponent, the loud-talking David Haye, pulled out of the bout because of an injured back. Thankfully, Ruslan Chagaev was available to step in as a replacement for the injured Haye.

Chagaev has been a poor substitute for Haye, though, because with only a week to go until the Wladimir-Chagaev bout, the fight is hardly talked about in most of the internet’s boxing forums/sites. Part of that is because of Chagaev’s unknown status with American boxing fans.

Only hardcore fans are aware of who Chagaev is because only a couple of his fights have ever been shown in the U.S. With fans who are aware of who Chagaev is, few of them give him much of a chance for an upset against the 33-year-old Wladimir.

Haye had a real chance of beating Wladimir because of his speed, but Chagaev isn’t the same kind of fighter as Haye and doesn’t possess the big power or the speed that Haye has. Because of that, it will take a lot of luck for Chagaev to be able to catch Wladimir with a big enough shot to put him down.

Chagaev isn’t a pressure fighter, which is really too bad for him because those are the type of fighters that Wladimir has problems with. If you were to describe Chagaev’s style of fighting at all it would be more like former World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion Sultan Ibragimov, another undersized southpaw Russian fighter that fights defensively and in spurts.

Chagaev mainly fights in range to land two or three punches and then get away. It’s not a particularly exciting style but it’s enabled him to go undefeated and to capture wins against Nikolay Valuev and John Ruiz, two of Chagaev’s best wins of his career. Chagaev isn’t all that tall at only 6’1”, and will have major problems trying to connect with his shorter punches.

Wladimir doesn’t like to fight at close range, so don’t expect him to be trying to do any favors for the short-armed Chagaev. The way I see this fight is that Chagaev will be eating a lot of jabs on the outside and will be looking to come in quickly to try and get his shots off without getting hit as much.

Chagaev hasn’t exactly been the most active fighter in the world in the past couple of years, fighting only twice because of illness and injury. Chagaev looked very average in his last fight, a 6th round technical decision over American Carl Davis Drumond in February.

The bout was stopped in the 6th after a bad head butt opened a huge cut on Chagaev. Last year, Chagaev plodded his way to a 12-round decision against Matt Skelton. What’s missing here is a defense against a mandatory #1 challenger, which Chagaev has somehow been able to avoid in the past two years because of his illnesses and injuries.

On Saturday night, Chagaev will have to look much better than he did against Skelton and Drumond if he wants to beat a fighter as good as Wladimir. There’s nothing that I’ve seen of Chagaev in his other high profile bouts that suggests that he will do anything other than lose to Wladimir.

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