By Erik Schmidt: This Saturday might, WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev (50-1, 34 KOs) will battle it out with Ruslan Chagaev (25-0, 17 KOs), the champion in recess to determine which of them are the true champions of the World Boxing Association heavyweight crown at the Hartwall Arena, in Helsinki, Finland.
Although both of them are technically champions, there’s a tremendous gulf of talent between Valuev and Chagaev compared to the IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko and his brother Vitali Klitschko, the WBC heavyweight title holder.
In a way, you could see the winner of Saturday night’s WBA title as more of a lower level champion because it’s doubtful that Chagaev or Valuev would last long with either of the Klitschko brothers.
Chagaev, 30, was the previous WBA title holder after beating Valuev by a 12-round majority decision in April 2007, but because of repeated illnesses and injuries, the WBA title went up for grabs in a fight between Valuev and John Ruiz in August 2008.
Valuev ended up winning by a 12-round split decision to capture the vacant WBA title. Rather than stripping Chagaev, which would probably have been the logical thing to have been done due to his many cancellations of title defenses, he was given the title of “champion in recess,” which allowed him to get a shot at Valuev when Chagaev’s illnesses and injuries healed.
In their previous fight, the 6’1” Chagaev spent much of the time on the outside eating jabs to the head. Every once in a while Chagaev would charge forward and land shot the chest, gloves and rarely to the head of Valuev. Chagaev was giving up 11 inches in height to the 7-foot Valuev and found it hard to land head shots.
As the fight got to the later rounds, though, Chagaev had a little bit better luck in landing punches. He was still getting hit a lot by Valuev, but Chagaev’s punches had more power on them than Valuev’s shots. In truth, both fighters looked horrible and hardly like top tier talent.
After getting the win, Chagaev moved and fought Matt Skelton a long nine months after, beating him by a boring 12-round decision filled with constant clinching and few solid punches landed. Chagaev took a long time defending his title because he had suffered an illness in between the Valuev and Skelton bout which kept him out of boxing for prolonged amount of time.
After suffering an injury as well as further illnesses, Chagaev took 13 months off before finally returning to the ring to fight Carl Davis Drumond in a February. Chagaev won that fight by a 6-round technical decision.
Valuev, 35, has fought four times since his loss to Chagaev, beating Sergey Lyakhovich. Jean Francois Bergeron, John Ruiz, and Evander Holyfield all by decision. Valuev appeared to lose the fight to Holyfield by at least three rounds.
However, Valuev pulled it off somehow with the judges. It might as well have been a defeat for Valuev, because it greatly lowered his stock in the minds of many boxing fans. Valuev’s work rate was poor in the Holyfield bout and he looked tired by the 5th round.
And while Chagaev isn’t all that great of a fighter either, he’s probably good enough to beat Valuev again if he can get close enough to get his shots in. Look for another boring fight like last time in which Chagaev rushes in, lands a few shots and then darts out to the outside to safety.
Their fight was painfully boring two years ago and I can’t expect it to be any better this time with both of them older and slower now.
In the undercard, former WBO heavyweight champion Lamon Brewster (35-4, 30 KOs) will be fighting little known Juho Haapoja (9-2, 7 KOs) in a stay busy fight. Brewster should win this fight without too much problems because Haapoja is unproven. Brewster needs a couple of good wins to get back into the top 15, so he can get back to contender status.
WBA/WBC female welterweight champion Cecilia Braekhus (11-0, 2 KOs) takes on Amy Yuratovac (6-2, 6 KOs) in a 10-round bout. This will be Braekhus’ the first defense of her WBA/WBC titles which she picked up in her last fight against Vinni Skovgaard, beating her by a unanimous decision in March to claim the vacant titles.
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