By Eric Thomas: Two long years after losing his World Boxing Association (WBA) heavyweight title to Ruslan Chagaev (25-0-1, 17 KOs) in April 2007 by a 12-round majority decision, seven-foot 320 pound Russian Nikolay Valuev (50-1, 34 KOs) will try to see revenge when he fights Chagaev again for the WBA title on May 30th, in Helsinki, Finland. The bout, hardly interesting to begin with, has lost any little appeal that it ever had as the stock of both Chagaev and Valuev has gone down since then.
Valuev, the WBA ordinary heavyweight champion, will face Chagaev, who’s now referred to the champion in recess.
I’ve never heard of this term before, but it’s probably something the WBA made up on the spur of the moment to justify not stripping Chagaev of his title due to his continuous illnesses and injuries that he keeps experiencing. Already, Valuev has missed out on two attempts to fight Chagaev due to Ruslan’s different ailments that keep plaguing him.
In two years, Chagaev has only defended the WBA title twice, once against Matt Skelton and another time against Carl Davis Drumond. As you can see, his management has made it so that Chagaev hasn’t had to take on any real threats in his two title defenses, which is probably why he still has the belt because he hasn’t looked impressive.
The fight should interest mainly boxing fans in Europe rather than the U.S. Germany is where both Valuev and Chagaev have their promotional roots connected, and thus fight mainly over there against generally soft opposition.
Valuev is coming off terribly controversial 12-round majority decision over 46-year-old Evander Holyfield in December, a fight that many Germans feel that Valuev clearly won. However, most of the rest of the world see it as a clear win for Holyfield.
Valuev’s record of 50-1 is highly inflated with little substance, and the same pretty much goes for Chagaev. It seems only fitting that the two are fighting each other, don’t you think? If Valuev is able to get the win over Chagaev, it can open Nikolay up for a huge payday against one of the Klitschko brothers, but that’s only if Valuev’s promoter is willing to let him fight Vitali or Wladimir.
Thus far, the Klitschko brothers have had no luck in trying to line up a fight with Valuev. However, given Valuev’s age, 35, and his recent poor showing against Holyfield, it might be the wise move for Valuev’s promoter to go for the huge payday for his fighter while he still can.
If Valuev sticks around for much longer, he’ll most surely be beaten by one of his mandatory challengers like Alexander Dimitrenko or Chris Arreola. The payday against either of them would be much smaller than against the Klitschkos, and worse than that, Valuev has very little chance of beating either of them.
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