By Chris Williams: Making his first appearance in over a year, former World Boxing Association (WBA) heavyweight champion Ruslan Chagaev (26-1-1, 17 KO’s) easily out-pointed Australian heavyweight Kali Meehan (35-4, 29 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision in their WBA heavyweight title eliminator bout at the Stadthalle in Rostock, Germany. The final judges’ scores were 118-110, 117-111, and 117-112, all for the 31-year-old Chagaev.

The 40-year-old Meehan didn’t have the work rate or the conditioning to fight hard enough in any of the rounds to do much. Although he showed good power at times, the 6’5” Meehan simply wasn’t busy enough to win the rounds. He looked slow on his feet and had problems with Chagaev’s in and out style of fighting. In his prime, Meehan could be more than a handful when he was letting his hands go. However, on Saturday night, Meehan looked tired by the 4th round, unable to let his punches go even when Chagaev was there to be hit.

It wasn’t as if Chagaev was looking outstanding himself. He didn’t look like the same fighter that defeated Nikolay Valuev by a 12 round decision in April 2007. He appeared slow on his feet and reacted slowly when incoming fire was coming at him. Last year, Chagaev was badly outclassed in a 9th round stoppage loss to IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in Germany. The time away from boxing doesn’t appear to have helped Chagaev much, as he looked even slower against Meehan than he did in the Klitschko fight.

Chagaev landed some nice left hands in the 3rd and 4th rounds when coming at Meehan. Chagaev was able to get in fast, blast away at Meehan and then get out of range before Meehan had much time to react. Meehan had problems connecting with many of his power shots because of his lack of hand speed. He seemed to be afraid to commit to his punches for fear of missing and getting countered. As such, Meehan threw a lot of jabs, which ended up being his sole weapon in many of the rounds. It would be enough if Meehan had an excellent jab but he doesn’t.
During the last four rounds, it was pretty clear that Meehan was in a hopeless situation and needed a knockout to win. However, he was far too tired by then to muster up much of an offensive to get Chagaev in trouble.

After the fight, Chagaev mentioned WBA heavyweight champion David Haye, saying he wants to fight him now. Chagaev may get the chance, because it’s looking now like Haye won’t be fighting a unification bout against heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko or his brother anytime soon. As much as I’m not impressed with Haye, I think he would destroy Chagaev the way he looked tonight. Chagaev would have to really improve a lot if he was to have much of a chance at beating Haye. I’d give Chagaev a puncher’s chance, except that he’s not much of a puncher.