By William Mackay: 33-year-old former WBA World heavyweight champion Ruslan Chagaev (29-2-1, 18 KO’s) will be taking an easy tune-up bout this Saturday night against journeyman Werner Kreidskott (12-18-1, 8 KO’s) in an eight round bout at the Koenig Pilsener Arena, Oberhausen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

It doesn’t get any easier than this for the southpaw Chagaev, who may be taking the soft fight in order to get ready for a nice payday bout against unbeaten Tyson Fury (19-0, 14 KO’s) later on in the year.

Chagaev reports that he’s just now started negotiations with Fury’s team but that nothing is definite about the fight taking place. Chagaev says needs a trainer and from there he’ll decide on whether he’ll take the fight or not.

Chagaev has won his last two fights after suffering a loss to Alexander Povetkin last year in August in a fight for the vacant WBA World heavyweight title.

Chagaev’s career has been on one big, slow decline since pulling off an upset of the 7-foot Nikolay Valuev in April 2007. That was the last time that Chagaev beat a world class opponent, as since then it’s been pretty much 2nd tier opposition. He’s beaten the following fighters since the Valuev win: Matt Skelton, Carl Davis Drumond, Kali Meehan, Travis Walker, Kertson Manswell and Billy Zumbrun. That’s not good. Meehan, at least was technically a fringe contender, but he was up there in age by the time Chagaev got to him.

Chagaev was beaten by IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in 2009 in a 9th round stoppage loss in June of that year. That was sickeningly one-sided, as the short 5’11’ Chagaev couldn’t even reach Wladimir’s chin with his shots.

It’s easy to see why Fury would want to fight Chagaev at this point in his career, because of how short Chagaev is and how badly he looked in getting beaten by Wladimir. Let’s face it, this is another safe fight for Fury if can get it. Chagaev is no threat to beating Fury, because he lacks the reach and the big time power needed to win.