By Eric Thomas: Now that the WBA heavyweight match between Nikolay Valuev (50-1, 34 KOs) and Ruslan Chagaev (24-0-1, 17 KOs) has been called off due to an undisclosed illness plaguing the 30-year-old Chagaev, former World Boxing Association heavyweight champion of the world John Ruiz (43-8-1, 29 KOs) wants a purse bid so that he can get a fight with the champion Valuev by August 30th.

Ruiz, 37, is the number #1 mandatory challenger for the WBA belt, and has already lost twice by close 12-round decisions to Valuev in the past, most recently losing by a 12-round split decision in August 2008 for the vacant WBA title.

The previous loss occurred in 2006, with Valuev winning by a 12-round majority decision victory. Both fights were very close making it hard to tell who the actual winner was. In both fights, Ruiz landed the harder and cleaner shots, while Valuev was busier and landed more often with weak jabs and combinations to the head.

Both fights had a lot of clinching as Valuev often mauled Ruiz when he got in close, wrapping him up in a big bear hug to prevent Ruiz from getting his shots off. It worked effectively in both fights but made the bouts boring to watch for boxing fans.

Ruiz was slated to fight the winner of this Saturday night’s bout between Valuev and Chagaev, but now that Chagaev has pulled out again, this time for the third time in the past 18 months, it leaves open whether Ruiz can get his third shot at Valuev or if Chagaev will get yet another time to line up a rematch with Valuev.

Ruiz feels that Chagaev should be stripped of his WBA title because he’s failed to defend his titles against his mandatory challengers in the past two years since winning the WBA title in 2007. Ruiz has been staying in shape and is ready to fight Valuev for the title as soon as possible.

Chagaev has been rumored to have hepatitis B, a disease that would likely make it difficult to fight for the title in places like the U.S. It’s hard to see how he could have been fighting in Germany the past two years if he’s had the disease for this long. If the WBA goes and ahead and strips Chagaev of his title, then Ruiz would be next in line as the mandatory challenger for the title.