(Photo by Chris Trotman/Getty Images)
On Saturday, Uzbekistanian, Ruslan Chagaev, will try to add a third major belt to his collection, when he battles Ring Magazine’s top rated heavyweight, Wladimir Klitschko (pictured), in the latter’s adapted nation of Germany.
Chagaev is the current WBA heavyweight title-holder (on “reserve”) despite being co-ranked at the top with 7’ Russian, Nikolay Valuev.
Klitschko has won ten straight matches, dating back to 2004 when he began working with former Lennox Lewis trainer, Emanuel Steward. Dr. Steelhammer has rounded up the WBO and IBF championships in an attempt to bring semblance back to a scattered division.
His camp, led by promoter Peter Kohl (who also represents Saturday’s opponent), had asked for the WBA to sanction a defense of their belt in this match, as well, but the committee refused.
Klitschko’s older brother, Vitali, is the reigning WBC champion, the fourth and final regarded classification body in professional boxing.
As it is, Ruslan Chagaev is a highly controversial and poorly regarded champion. He was scheduled for a title unification bout in 2007 with the then IBF champ, Sultan Ibragimov, but Chagaev was forced to postpone the bout after testing positive for Hepatitis-B.
The match was never re-scheduled due to Ibragimov soon losing his belt to Wladimir, and Chagaev having a mandatory WBA title defense against Nikolay Valuev, the man he originally won this said belt from.
However, the Valuev bout was scheduled in Finland, where Chagaev’s positive Hepatitis diagnosis again restricted him from receiving a license to fight.
So, very, perhaps, strategically beneficial for the Uzbekistanian, is the fact he now gets an undeserved chance to impress sponsors and possible supporters of future unification bouts if he can beat Wlad Klitschko.
Whether or not Chagaev wins Saturday, he will have to put the WBA on the line against Valuev. Still lingering is the WBC champion, Vitali Klitschko, whose last match was a steamroll versus Juan Carlos Gomez in March.
All tongue twisting aside now, what the heavyweight division vitally (or "vitali!") needs, and does not currently have is a guy we can all hang our hat on. We need someone who has beaten all the contenders, and done so in style.
Look, obviously the 1990s supplied more cache fighters who attracted the main event-worthy ratings numbers.
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