According to Rueters, former World Boxing Association heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev (47-1, 34 KOs) has been sued by a Russian man, Yuri Sergeyev, 61, for slugging him two years ago in an altercation in a parking lot outside of a Sports center in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Valuev, 34, was fined thirty thousand roubles, which comes out to roughly $1228, and will have to pay another hundred thousand roubles to compensate the man for his injuries. Valuev, currently ranked #1 in the WBA heavyweight rankings, says that he was merely shaking the man after he insulted Valuev’s wife, Galina, but the man says that he was actually punched by Valuev.
Valuev is in the process of trying to regain his WBA heavyweight championship in which he lost in a controversial majority decision loss to Ruslan Chagaev on April 14th, 2007. Valuev looked to have clearly won the fight by at least 2-3 rounds, as Chagaev landed few punches in the bout, most of which landed on Valuev’s gloves and chest. Perhaps one of the worse decisions in recent memory, Valuev hopes to gain a rematch with Chagaev as soon as possible. Before doing so, Valuev must get by former World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion Serguei Lyakhovich (23-2, 14 KOs), whom he faces on February 16th, in a WBA eliminator bout.
If everything goes well for Valuev, he’ll be the mandatory for the WBA heavyweight title, which is presently held by Chagaev. Lyakhovich, 31, a talented heavyweight from Belarus, hasn’t fought in 14 months since losing his WBO heavyweight title in a 12th round TKO to Shannon Briggs on November 2006. The bout was especially disappointing for Lyakhovich because he was ahead on the cards going into the 12th round, and if he had opted to stay away from Briggs in the final three minutes, he’d have easily won the fight.
Instead, going against his cornerman’s wishes, Lyakovich decided to try and slug out with Briggs and ended up being stopped. It’s odd that Lyakhovich hasn’t fought since then, and many boxing fans feel that the defeat has been a hard pill for Serguei to swallow. Going into his bout with Valuev without any tuneups before hand, it seems, is another risky strategy for Lyakovich, as he’ll likely have rusty ring skills for this important bout.