By Matt Stein: Early this morning, IBF/WBO Wladimir Klitschko received some terrible news that his June 20th opponent David Haye had to pull out of his fight in Germany due an injury to one of Haye’s hands. The injury left Klitschko high and dry without an opponent to fight for huge sellout crowd at the Veltins Arena, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
Refusing to give up on the June 20th date, Wladimir is reportedly seeking out a replacement opponent amount a variety of opponents starting with Nikolay Valuev and possibly Ruslan Chagaev. A fight against the Russian giant Valuev would be better than a fight with Haye, but Wladimir has had poor luck in lining up a fight with Valuev in the past.
With only three weeks to go before June 20th, it would seem extremely doubtful that Valuev would step in and take the fight with a puncher as dangerous as Wladimir at such short notice. The unbeaten Chagaev is a whole different matter.
He’s wanted to fight Wladimir and his brother Vitali for some time, and this would be the ideal time for Chagaev to step up and take the fight with the Ukrainian. Chagaev’s future as the WBA champion at recess is in doubt after his bout last weekend against Valuev was pulled when the Finland Boxing medical board wouldn’t allow him to go through with the fight due to Ruslan failing the pre-fight medical test.
The WBA will be making a ruling on the matter to determine whether Chagaev and Valuev should still go forward for another fight. If they rule against Chagaev, he could lose his ‘champion in recess’ status. Although if Chagaev can get a title fight against Wladimir, it might not matter all that much if he loses the WBA crown.
This would give Chagaev a great opportunity to pick up two of Wladimir’s titles, and also give Chagaev a ton of attention with the boxing public. Win or lose, Chagaev will likely get much more attention in a fight with Wladimir than he would in a 2nd fight with Valuev.
First of all, the Chagaev-Klitschko fight would be shown in the U.S. on HBO and there would likely be a lot of people tuning to see the fight, if only just to see Wladimir fight.
It would be a great fight regardless if Chagaev loses the fight. If Chagaev can give Wladimir a tough fight, he’ll win a lot of respect from people no matter what happens. And personally, I see Chagaev as the tougher opponent than Haye because of his chin and his rugged ability to apply pressure and make a war of it.
Chagaev’s size, 6’1 230, would no doubt he a problem for him because he would be giving up six inches in height. Chagaev was able to make quick attacks of Valuev in their April 2007 fight two years ago, and get the better of the 7-foot Valuev.
It will be much harder for Chagaev to accomplish this against the quicker and more powerful Klitschko, because he’s good at backing away from his opponents and catching them coming in with left hooks. At a distance, Chagaev wouldn’t be safe from Wladimir’s long jab and hence he’d have to get way out of range if he wanted to avoid getting nailed with it.
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