(Picture: Photo Wende) By Sean McDaniel: 39-year-old #1 WBA Hasim Rahman (50-7-2, 41 KO’s) will be challenging for the title against WBA World heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin (24-0, 16 KO’s) on September 29th in Hamburg, Germany. On the undercard will be heavyweight contenders Kubrat Pulev (16-0, 8 KO’s) facing unbeaten Alexander Ustinov (27-0, 21 KO’s) in an International Boxing Federation (IBF) heavyweight title eliminator bout. The winner of the fight will become IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko’s mandatory challenger.

Rahman is recovering from an injury to his left wrist that caused him pain while training for the title shot against Povetkin. The injury is now healed and Rahman is ready to go.

Povetkin, 32, will be making his third title defense of his belt after having beaten Cedric Boswell and Marco Huck in his previous title defenses. Rahman could be a step down from Huck for Povetkin, because he almost lost to Huck last February in a 12 round majority decision win. Povetkin looked heavyweight and out of shape in that fight and was really gasping for air in the later rounds. However, he did a good job of staying active to win the crucial rounds of the fight.

Rahman has had things pretty easy since losing his last title fight against Wladimir in 2008. Rahman has won five bouts since then but has faced weak opposition each time out. The World Boxing Association still for some reason decided to rank Rahman at #1 despite his lack of quality opposition.

Pulev, 6’4 1/2″ and the 6’7″ Ustinov could be the best fight on this card because these two huge heavyweights appear to be pretty evenly matched. Ustinov can punch a little and knows how to use his huge size to his advantage. However, Pulev is the more experienced fighter due to his long amateur background and he could prove to be too much for the slow 300 pound Ustinov. Still it’s a difficult fight to predict a winner for.