Klitschko, Chagaev and the Heavyweight Shuffle

Now that David Haye has pulled out of his scheduled June 20th fight with recognized heavyweight champ, Wladimir Klitshcko, due to a back injury, and now that Klitschko has opted to fight the undefeated Ruslan Chagaev rather than wait around for Haye to heal, the heavyweight ranks are suddenly swirling with rumors of all manner of fights to come in the wake of the shake-up – Haye vs. Vitali Klitschko, Vitali Klitschko vs. Chris Arreola, Haye vs. Nikolai Valuev, Chris Arreola vs. Haye, and on and on and on in the endless game of ring-around-the-rosey that is speculative matchmaking amongst the gangstas and wankstas of the boxing world. ↵
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↵Leaving aside the what-ifs for the moment, we should focus our attention on the what-is – Wlad Klitschko vs. Ruslan Chagaev, which actually is signed and sealed for the June 20th date at the Veltins Arena in Germany. One wonders how the 66,000 or so fans who bought expensive tickets to see Wlad ritually slay the upstart Haye feel about the Chagaev substitution, but hey (Haye)… this is boxing, the tawdry life we’ve chosen. For every unspeakably thrilling moment, there is a gigantic disappointment to balance it out.↵
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↵It’s highly conceivable that the German fans at least will see a closer (or perhaps, merely longer) fight with Chagaev in the ring than they would have with the Hayemaker in his place.

Most of the fight world’s cognoscenti were putting Haye’s chances at little to none to unseat the mighty Ukrainian champion, with the likeliest scenario seeing Haye going hard for the knockout early, and ending up knocked senseless himself come the fifth or so.↵
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↵Chagaev, meanwhile, in stark contrast to Haye’s bombast, is a cautious, measured fighter who one could imagine going rounds with Wlad. Winning any of those rounds might be a different story. The thrill of the Haye proposition was the idea that he would swarm Klitschko and with his proven power in both hands test the one part of Wlad’s arsenal that remains doubtful – his chin. There was no guarantee that Haye would have success with this approach, but one gleaned at least the glimmer of hope, that glimmer known colloquially as “the puncher’s chance.”↵
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↵What glimmer there is for Chagaev does not have quite the alluring glint of a sudden knockout. For him to manage a victory against Wlad, one envisions a tremendously boring fight that he wins on points with the kind of non-engaging, jab-and-grab trickery that has given heavyweight fighting a bad name for years now.↵
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↵And here’s the very bad news for Chagaev – among Klitschko’s many graduate degrees, he has a Doctorate in Jab-and-Grab Trickery. You add in the fact that, just as would Haye, Chagaev will face quite a size disadvantage fighting the big Klisch (standing as he does at 6’1”, 220 or so to Wlad’s 6’7”, 245) and you can’t help but harbor scant hopes for the possibility of an upset. ↵
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↵No one, and I mean no one will expect Chagaev to pull it off. I actually can’t find any odds on this fight right now (all the major Vegas books still seem to want to take action on Wlad/Haye) but I’m guessing the tilt will lean to Klitschko at least to the tune of 4-1, maybe higher. It likely will be a plodding, uneventful fight (HBO has passed on the television rights – as of yet, no American bidder has stepped into the void), and yet it also will be a fight of huge significance, in that The Ring Magazine recently decreed that it will be for the official Ring heavyweight title, because Klistchko is their number-one ranked heavyweight and Chagaev their number three (Chagaev also holds some version of the WBA heavyweight title right now, although because that always dubious organization has fallen into the practice of putting their champions into different categories, it is virtually impossible to tell who actually holds the WBA belt at any given weight class). ↵
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↵So, despite the decidedly disappointing fact that we lost the mirage of Haye/Klitschko and the only headline-worthy heavyweight fight in eons, what we gained in its wake is the fact that on June 20th, there will be an official Ring heavyweight champion for the first time since Vitali Klitschko retired in 2005. Myself, I admit that I would have preferred the Wlad/Haye theatrics, but as far as a tradeoff goes, the clarification of the long-muddled heavyweight championship is something, at least.↵