By Eric Thomas: Former WBA World heavyweight champion Ruslan Chagaev (27-2-1, 17 KO’s) will be fighting a stay busy fight against little known heavyweight Kertson Manswell (22-3, 17 KO’s) next Saturday night on January 28th in a scheduled eight round bout at the Grand Elyss, Rotherbaum, in Hamburg, Germany.
Chagaev, #9 WBA, needs to get busy and get some quality wins under his belt if he wants to get another heavyweight title shot. I can’t say care too much for his choice of opponent but hopefully Chagaev will step it up so he can get another title shot before he turns 35 in two years.
Chagaev, 33, lost his last fight against Alexander Povetkin by a 12 round unanimous decision in a failed effort to capture the vacant World Boxing Association (WBC) World heavyweight title last year in August.
Chagaev is just now getting back in the ring and is taking no chances that he might get beat by picking the 35-year-old Manswell to fight from Tobago. Manswell has lost three out of his last five fights to Bermane Stiverne by a 2nd round TKO, Mike Perez by a three round unanimous decision in the Prizefighter heavyweight tournament last May in London and then a 10 round unanimous decision loss to 42-year-old Cedric Boswell last June. When Manswell loses, he seems to lose by wide margins. This suggests that Chagaev should win this fight with no problem whatsoever unless Manswell gets lucky and stops Chagaev, which I kind of doubt will happen.
Chagaev, 33, previously held the WBA heavyweight title from 2007 until 2009 when it was stripped from him. He later fought IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in June 2009 as a substitute for David Haye, and was knocked out in the 9th round by Wladimir.
Chagaev defeated Kali Meehan by a 12 round unanimous decision in his next fight in a WBA heavyweight title eliminator bout in May 2010.
Also on the same card is Juergen Brahmer vs. Jose Maria Guerrero, Firat Arslan vs. Orlando Antonio Farias, Rakhim Chakhkiev, Denis Boytsov vs. Darnell Wilson, Marcel Meyerdiercks vs. Roberto Santos de Jesus.
As you can tell already, there’s not much in the way of competitive fights on this card. It could be that they only had money enough for the popular fighters but not for their opponents.