Chagaev vs. Skelton is Close To a Sellout

First ever heavyweight world championship in Düsseldorf: Ruslan Chagaev will meet the Briton Matt Skelton in the Ring (Live from 10.00 pm on ZDF).

Only 500 tickets remaining on sale!

With Taras Bidenko, Denis Boytsov, Egon Roth and Vladimir Tereshkin the undercard is loaded with more heavyweight fighters

Paulie Malignaggi Wins Bare Knuckle Fight, but What Comes Next?

BoxingScene’s own Paulie Malignaggi returned to the ring, this time in bare knuckle boxing, and came away with a hard fought win over Tyler Goodjohn. In today’s episode of BoxingScene Today, we talk about Paulie’s performance, the injuries he suffered in the fight, and whether he plans to fight again.

Monday | Oct 20, 2025

Only 500 tickets remain for the highly anticipated WBA world heavyweight championship showdown between unbeaten champion Ruslan Chagaev (23-0-1, 17 KOs) and big-punching challenger Matt Skelton (21-1, 18 KOs) on January 19 at the Burg-Wächter Castello in Düsseldorf, Germany.

The WBA heavyweight champion Ruslan Chagaev will defend his title against Commonwealth champion Matt Skelton (Live from 10.00 pm on ZDF). The unbeaten Champion Ruslan Chagaev (23-0-1 (17)) will face a very experienced opponent in his first title defence . After he the long break with no fight and no training, the Universum world champion Ruslan Chagaev is now back and has intensivley worked with his coach Michael Timm to be ready to return to the ring.

Since a impressive decision victory over the "Russian Giant" Nicolay Valuev in April 2007, “The White Tyson” had to cancel the unification bout of the WBA and WBO belts in a October against Sultan Ibragimov. Chagaev had to withdraw because of a serious illness.

The 6'3 challenger and Commonwealth-Champion Matt Skelton (21-1-0 (18)) comes to Düsseldorf with only one defeat in his 21 fights and has an impressive KO record. A tough opponent for Chagaev.

The full undercard was announced today and will include four additional heavyweight bouts. The Hamburg based WBA-Intercontinental Champion Taras Bidenko (24-2-0 (12)) will take on Cisse Salif (22-8-2 (20)) of Mali and defend his belt for another time.

Also, in an intriguing battle of unbeaten heavyweight KO artists, the Russian Denis Boytsov (19-0, 17 KOs) will have his third appearance in Düsseldorf and will collide with the Brazilian Thiago Vasques (8-0, 7 KOs).

Returning from a six-month injury break, unbeaten German heavyweight Egon Roth (18-0, 13 KOs) takes on Sandor Forgacs while the up-and-coming heavyweight hope Vladimir Tereshkin of Russia (5-0, 5 KOs) meets Remigijus Ziausys.

Rounding up the action of the big „Universum Champions Night“ in Düsseldorf will be world rated welterweight Jan Zaveck (23-0, 13 KOs) of SES Boxing who battles Pietro d’Alessio (5-6-1, 4 KOs) and spotlight boxing hopeful Igor Michalkin (2-0, 2 KOs) goes against Aleksandr Dunec in a light heavyweight bout.