By Dave Lahr: According to the The Ring, International Boxing Federation/World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko and Ruslan Chagaev have agreed upon a June 20th bout that will be taking place at the Veltins Arena, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. The bout was supposed to be David Haye vs. Klitschko, but Haye injured his back recently while training and couldn’t take the fight. Wladimir and Chagaev have only to sign the contract and the fight will be official. The contracts will be signed tomorrow, Bernd Bonte, the manager for Klitschko is saying.
Reportedly, HBO isn’t interested in Wladimir fighting Chagaev and would prefer that Wladimir wait until July 11th, the date that Haye and his manager Adam Booth had asked the Haye-Klitschko fight to be postponed till. However, Wladimir and his management team, K2, thought that it was too risky to wait on a fight with Haye, as with the nature of the injury, there would be a high chance that Haye might not be ready by July 11th and would potentially force a second cancellation of a fight.
The choice of Chagaev as an opponent seems to be one calculated for the German public, because they seem to like Chagaev for some reason. It’s hard to say what the attraction is, because none of his biggest fights of his career – John Ruiz, Nikolay Valuev, Vladimir Virchis, and Matt Skelton – were impressive with Chagaev looking little better than his opponents.
Indeed, Chagaev looked about the same as each of these fighters in terms of talent. The only other notable opponent on Chagaev’s resume is British journeyman Michael Sprott, who Chagaev stopped in the 8th round three years ago in 2006.
As for the rest of Chagaev’s competition, it’s been lower level fighters without much ability and with names that few boxing fans, even the hardcore ones, have ever heard of. The American public doesn’t appear to be the slightest bit interested in a Chagaev-Wladimir fight judging by the negative comments in East Side Boxing’s forum, which is arguably the best boxing forum on the net.
Perhaps the reason for the lack of interest in the fight is in part because of Chagaev’s constant fight cancellations since winning the WBA heavyweight title two years ago. I lost count at three but I think it might be four by now or possibly five.
There were at least three cancellations for a bout with Valuev and one with a unification bout with then WBO heavyweight champion Sultan Ibragimov. At any rate, there have been too many cancellations and last weekend, Chagaev had the plug pulled on yet another title bout, again with Valuev, when Chagaev failed the pre-fight medical test in Helsinki, Finland.
Without HBO to show the fight, Wladimir will lose out on a lot of visibility that he would have otherwise been able to get with a fight with the 28-year-old Haye. Ring reports that there’s a possibility of another network picking up the fight. That would be nice, although I don’t know what kind of ratings the fight could get because of Chagaev’s low popularity in the U.S. The German’s love Chagaev, but then again they don’t have a lot of options like the U.S. does in terms of heavyweight talent.
With only a little over two weeks to go for the fight, it leaves Klitschko very little time to work on training for Chagaev, who fights out of a southpaw stance. Wladimir has had problems in the past against southpaw fighters, having problems against Corrie Sanders and Tony Thompson. Wladimir also didn’t look good against Sultan Ibragimov, another southpaw, and fought timidly throughout the fight.
Ring magazine, which has their own rankings, will recognize the winner of the Chagaev vs. Wladimir fight as the heavyweight champion of the world. Currently, Wladimir is ranked #1 and Chagaev is ranked #3 in the Ring heavyweight rankings. Boxingnews24 doesn’t see things nearly the same way.
We have Wladimir ranked #2 behind his brother, WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko and Chagaev ranked at a distant #9 in the Boxingnews24 rankings. It’s impossible to rank a fighter like Chagaev at number #3 when he’s only been a part time boxer for the past two years, battling with illness and injuries and fighting only non-mandatory bouts.
If we were to go back two to six years before Chagaev was dealing with his illness, he struggled against John Ruiz, Vladimir Virchis and Nikolay Valuev, beating all of them by a close decision. Chagaev would have to do much better than that to be ranked at number #3, so I dismiss the Ring rankings for him.
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