Chagaev vs. Valuev Preview

Posted by David M. Lee on 12.31.1969

A battle to decide the TRUE WBA champion!



It's been a year in the making, but this Saturday night in Helsinki, Nikolay Valuev (50-1, 34 KOs) and Ruslan Chagaev (25-0-1, 17 KOs) will finally have their rematch that will decide who is the true WBA heavyweight champion (I am not going to get into this whole WBA title debacle. It's like beating a dead horse at this point!). Ali and Frazier it won't be, but what we should get in this Saturday's heavyweight title fight is an intriguing boxing match between two technically sound boxers. Yes, I used technically sound and Nikolay Valuev in the same sentence. Forget all this nonsense about Valuev only being effective because of his size. If that were the case, giants like Michael Grant, Tye Fields and Julius Long would all have been world champions. The reason these big lumps have never made it at world level is that none of them have a boxing brain between their ears. Valuev knows his way around the ring, even if it those take him an eternity to get there.

He possesses a nice accurate jab, a solid right-hand and a sound defence. Nothing exceptional, but good fundamental attributes. There's no doubting Chagaev's abilities. The Uzbekistan southpaw had an outstanding amateur career, which included gold medal success at the World Amateur Championships in '97 (where he defeated Cuban legend Felix Savon) and '01. It is this amateur pedigr