Boxer Ruslan Chagaev received the nickname "White Tyson from Uzbekistan" in the ring. This happened for the first time in 2001 in Ireland after an athlete had four fights and they all ended ahead of schedule. The boxer himself does not really like this nickname, because the black American heavyweight is his long-standing idol. Ruslan believes that Tyson cannot be compared with anyone. Among the famous colleagues, Chagaev is distinguished by a powerful blow, good technique and boxing intelligence. In his professional sports biography, he set a personal record: twenty-five wins, seventeen of them by knockout, one draw.
Amateur boxing
Ruslan Chagaev is a purebred Tatar by nationality. Once his ancestors moved from the Ulyanovsk region to Uzbekistan, where he was born in 1978 in the city of Andijan. The boy began to play sports early and pleased his trainers and parents with his success. The first serious results were victories at amateur tournaments. In 1995, Ruslan won an important title - the champion of Asia among heavyweight amateurs.
Over the next six years, he twice confirmed this title and twice became the world champion among amateurs. Each victory was preceded by a lot of work and months of training. The result of the world championship in 1997 was canceled due to the fact that on the eve of the championship, the athlete had a fight with a professional Donny Penelton. The victory of the Uzbek athlete over the American was unconditional, after which the eminent professional retired.
Professional sport
After that, Chagaev was invited to the professional league. In his new capacity, he showed his good form and high technical level of boxing in the fight with Everett Martin, when he finished the match in the fourth round with a confident knockout.
Until January 2006, Chagaev spent fifteen battles. They ended with fourteen victories and one draw with American Rob Calloway. In March of the same year, a meeting was held with Ukrainian Vladimir Virchis, in which, in almost equal fight, the judges awarded the victory to the Uzbek athlete. The result of many years of hard work were the champion titles of WBA and WBO. In November 2006, a match with U.S. boxer John Ruiz took place in Dusseldorf, Germany. “White Tyson” in the eighth round by TKO won, thereby confirming his championship.
An important battle for Ruslan was a meeting with Russian Nikolai Valuev in 2007. The foreign audience nicknamed the St. Petersburg heavyweight "The Beast from the East." Up to this point, both athletes did not know defeat. The forces of the opponents were so equal that the judges could determine the winner only by the sum of the points, taking into account all twelve rounds. The winner of the match, Chagaev, who was significantly inferior to the Russian in growth, received his first belt in the heavyweight division. The invincible Valuev today recalls that day: fifty winning matches and one defeat - "David defeated Goliath!" In the athlete’s homeland, they arranged a real celebration on this occasion and gave the winner a very warm welcome. Two years later, a rematch was planned, but Chagaev’s injury twice prevented his holding. Instead of this battle, another no less vivid and significant took place. The rival of Ruslan was Vladimir Klitschko. Before the fight, Chagaev was stripped of his WBA title. His state of health led to the fact that he entered the ring infrequently and was therefore declared the "champion of the holidays." The athlete’s morale was broken and he admitted defeat to the Ukrainian.
Another strong defeat was the outcome of the battle with the Russian Alexander Povetkin in 2011. Throughout the competition, leadership passed to one or another athlete. Opponents showed a lot of interesting attacks, partly even aggressive boxing. Ruslan surpassed Alexander in quality of blows, but noticeably lost in their quantity. The victory was unanimously awarded to Povetkin. After that, during the year, Chagaev did not enter the ring. He appeared in 2012 to demonstrate a beautiful boxing match with Kerston Manswell and convincingly knock out American Billy Zambran.
In 2014, the boxer from Uzbekistan won brilliant victories over Fres Oquendo from Puerto Rico and the Italian Francesco Pianetta, who was hit by a knockout from the first minutes of the fight. In total, the Chagaev championship lasted about five years. Having lost to Lucas Brown in 2016, he lost this title and decided to end his boxing career. Another reason was the deteriorating vision of the athlete.
