Wladimir Klitschko is better off Fighting Ruslan Chagaev

[Lacrimosa]

Chagaev has more than a puncher's chance against Wlad. He has looked crappy of late, I wonder if thats because he hasn't gotten psyched about his fights and prepared poorly for his underwhelming opposition. He's not as athletic or exciting as Haye, but he has a better chance of winning and the most important thing is we have a linear champion. That is something to get excited about since it's been years (Lennox's retirement) since we had a champion. It's a good fight style-wise and a great fight for posterity

M-m-m, Yes!!!

[The Hammer]

Good article.

Chagaev represents a bigger challenge and a tougher fight than Haye.

Ruslan is undefeated and has never been down in a fight, while Haye was knocked down even by super middleweight Mock. He's defeated three Ring top ten heavyweights (Valuev, Virchis and Ruiz) while Haye has defeated none, and won a world title at heavyweight.

[xAUGUSTUSx]

Best article ever. Klits vs Chegs must happen.

[PittyPat]

Chagaev represents a bigger challenge and a tougher fight than Haye.

Ruslan is undefeated and has never been down in a fight, while Haye was knocked down even by super middleweight Mock. He's defeated three Ring top ten heavyweights (Valuev, Virchis and Ruiz) while Haye has defeated none, and won a world title at heavyweight.

Yawn. I had to unbolden all of those because they're meaningless attributes.

Stats, KDs and opponents don't make up for the fact that Chags is a boring fighter and looks like crap in the ring - whereas Haye, for all his fundamental flaws, always came to make a fight exciting. Gamboa gets knocked down all the time, but most of us fight fans adore the guy for coming to FIGHT.

So, as *****-like as it may seem that Haye's gone and injured himself, it's still a majorly raw deal for boxing that us true fans never got to see THE fight everyone wanted. Wlad facing Chags is like a really lame consolation prize. Not a fan-friendly fight, however you look at it.

[Dave Rado]

Well because the “Champion in Recess” Chagaev was unable to defend against the “Regular” champion Valuev this past weekend due to his reoccurring Hepatitis issue. To be honest, if there is a possibility of contracting the disease in the ring, I can’t blame any fighter for being hesitant to face him. [details]

I think you're being far too kind to Valuev in this statement. Chagaev had extremely low, non-infectious levels of Hepatitis antigen in his blood. In almost any country in the world other than Finland, the fight would have gone ahead, but Finland has stricter (i.e. over-cautious) rules. And it was Valuev who wanted the fight to take place in Finland rather than Germany. Even then, Valuev was told the fight could proceed as long as he had a vaccination, but he refused to have one. Funny how no one is saying Wlad shouldn't fight Chagaev because of the risk of infection - that's because there is no risk of infection.

[Dave Rado]

As far as bringing clarity to the heavyweight division, this is the better fight. But as a fight itself, from an entertainment standpoint and from a competitive standpoint, I think this will be worse, stylistically, this fight has all the makings for a stinker, possibly a one sided stinker.

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. It will be great to have a lineal heavyweight champion again after so long - but as for the fight itself, it's likely to be a lot less interesting than Wlad-Haye, and outside of Germany and Eastern Europe, the fight itself will create far less buzz. Even in Germany, Wlad-Haye sold more tickets than any fight has since World War II, and I can't believe that Wlad-Chagaev would have sold so many. In any other circumstances, great fight to make. In these circumstances, in terms of generating worldwide interest in boxing and in the Heavyweight division, Wlad-Haye was much better. Ali-Foreman was postponed by several weeks due to an injury to Foreman, so this sort of short postponement is hardly unprecedented. I can appreciate that Wlad has good reasons for wanting to stick to the June 20 date rather than postpone, not least the fact that Haye's injury can't be guaranteed to heal by July 11, and also the problems that rescheduling would cause to the television companies involved. And I agree that Chagaev is a fortuitously good replacement, because of the fact that it would be for the lineal title, and because of the fact that he happens to be fit. But I still think that Silencers is right that the Haye fight would be much better in terms of increasing the profile and popularity of boxing, and would make for a far more interesting fight style-wise.

And although Barrett is no great shakes, he's certainly better than Skelton, and Chagaev made very hard work of beating Skelton.

[Dave Rado]

So your telling everyone that u would **** up your own brother, possibly kill him or him kill you just so fans can have one champ, rather than share the belts, u either don't have a brother or if u do, your one ****ed up individual. I have brothers, there's no way i would ever fight one of them, and certainly not in the ring where many fighters have been killed or seriously injured.

And certainly not for money - the idea of trying to beat up one's own brother for money is just sick, IMO.

[Dave Rado]

Aww, get a grip crybaby.

No siblings here, but that's not my problem. I pay to watch these fights (streams have pissed me off lately), so I expect to see THE BEST fight THE BEST. Who's THE BEST? Wlad and Vitali.

Everyone's up in arms about Chags and Valuev sharing a belt, but what about the brothers who seem to want to share the division? I'd rather see one man be THE BEST instead of two men.

I guarantee you that most true boxing fans think the same.

Most boxing fans want one champion rather than two, but most boxing fans who have human feelings want that to happen either by someone beating one of the brothers and then fighting the other, or by Vitali retiring. The sight of two brothers who are close trying to beat each other up would only appeal to the freak show element. And they would be emotionally unable to try to do that anyway, so it would be a mockery of a fight, as they would both pull their punches. Even Venus and Serena Williams had big problems emotionally whenever they faced each other, particularly in their first few matches - neither really wanted to win, and neither tried very hard - and tennis is not even a combat sport.

[Dave Rado]

Hell, I don't know any brothers that didn't beat the crap out of one another growing up.

I don't know any who did. Most had physical fights but in their fights they certainly didn't go all out to physically hurt each other, they were really just wrestling matches in which no one got hurt; and by the time they were adults, if they were at all close, they would never have dreamed of trying to hurt each other, even in anger in the heat of the moment, never mind doing it in a calculated way for money, the idea of which would make them sick. The idea of that, to me, is like bear baiting - it's just a freak show and doesn't belong in a civilized society.

[PittyPat]

Even Venus and Serena Williams had big problems emotionally whenever they faced each other, particularly in their first few matches - neither really wanted to win, and neither tried very hard - and tennis is not even a combat sport.

Yet, for the sake of the sport, they still put on highly skilled matches on the biggest stage of them all (Wimbledon) in which usually nobody is able to tell who'll win until the 3rd set. It may not be entertaining, but if the sport calls for it and there's a need to decide an undisputed winner - it has to be done.

Granted, the brothers don't have to fight by obligation of sanctioning bodies or other organisations... but for the sake of boxing, it's just disappointing that they're so quick to dismiss the possibility of it ever happening (discounting the whole "mother-told-us-not-to" thing).

But I get what you're saying. It transcends a combat sport and becomes more about not wanting to ever step in the ring with someone you've known and loved your whole life. Guess some of us have got to let it go.