By William Mackay: Former WBA heavyweight champion Ruslan Chagaev (27-1, 17 KO’s) will be fighting unbeaten Alexander Povetkin (21-0, 15 KO’s) for David Haye’s WBA paper heavyweight title that Haye recently lost to IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko last weekend by a 12 round decision in Hamburg.

The WBA quickly made Wladimir the WBA Super World heavyweight champion, thus freed up the WBA title for Chagaev and Povetkin to fight for next month on August 27th at a still to be determined location. Povetkin, 31, has got to be thrilled to be finally fighting for a title after all this time. He had the opportunity to fight Wladimir twice but got injured the first time and opted not to fight him on another occasion. Chagaev held the WBA title in the past from 2007 to 2009, losing when he was stripped for not defending it enough.

Povetkin likely will win this fight due to his high pressure style of fighting. Chagaev hasn’t looked good since beating Nikolay Valuev for the World Boxing Association title four years ago in 2007. Chagaev has only fought five times since then in the past four years, averaging around one fight a year and looking horrible. Wladimir knocked Chagaev out in the 9th round in an easy fight in 2009. Chagaev came back from that loss to beat Kalie Meehan and Travis Walker in his last two fights, but failed to shin in both fights.

Povetkin’s career has gone backwards since 2008. He won the IBF heavyweight elimination tournament by beating Chris Byrd and Eddie Chambers, but then never fought the IBF champion Wladimir. Povetkin has taken on weaker opposition since that tournament ended, beating Taurus Sykes, Jason Estrada, Leo Nolan, Javier Mora, Teke Oruh and Nicolai Firtha in his last six fights.