Ruslan Shamilevich Chagaev (; ; ); born 19 October 1978) is an Uzbekistani former professional boxer who competed from 2001 to 2016. He held the World Boxing Association (WBA) heavyweight title twice (Regular version in his second reign) and was the first Asian boxer to win a world heavyweight title by any of the four major sanctioning bodies. He was ranked as a top 10 heavyweight or contender by The Ring magazine at the conclusion of each year between 2006 and 2015; at the end of 2008 he was ranked third, only behind the Klitschko brothers.
Chagaev is one of a few professional boxers to resume his amateur boxing career after a few professional bouts in 1997. He was reinstated as an amateur by the AIBA the following year as his professional bouts were declared exhibitions. As an amateur, Chagaev won gold medals at the 2001 World Championships and 1999 Asian Championships, in the heavyweight and super-heavyweight divisions respectively.
In 2007, Chagaev defeated then-unbeaten Nikolai Valuev to win his first WBA heavyweight title and would make two successful defences. Due to injuries and being unable to grant Valuev a rematch in 2009, the WBA stripped Chagaev of the title. He went on to suffer his first professional loss in the same year to unified heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.
Chagaev won the WBA (Regular) heavyweight title by defeating Fres Oquendo in 2014. He made one successful defence before losing the title to Lucas Browne in 2016. However, after Browne failed a drug test, the WBA reinstated Chagaev as champion, but he was once again stripped of the title in July of that year after failing to pay sanctioning fees. On 28 July 2016, he announced his retirement from boxing due to ongoing eye injuries.
Amateur career Chagaev won gold at the 1997 World Amateur Boxing Championships heavyweight, defeating Félix Savón in the finals, but later he was stripped of the championship for having 2 professional bouts in the United States before the tournament. Chagaev is the only non-Cuban boxer to defeat Félix Savón twice, and the only one to do it at the world championships, which Savón have won consecutively. Savón suffered his first international defeat in more than a decade, when he met Chagaev for a first time.Cuba's Savon beaten (Reuters,) Kingston Gleaner, 26 October 1997, p. 47. His amateur career is also merited with absence of stoppages on his part, with all four his losses were standing defeats with him being outpointed. Because of his performance at the 2001 World Amateur Boxing Championships, where Chagaev stopped every opponent he had faced, a rarity in amateur boxing competitions, Chagaev received the nickname "White Tyson".
Highlights
Asian Championships (91 kg), Tashkent, Uzbekistan, October 1995: 1/8: Defeated Jiang Tao (China) 11–4 1/4: Defeated Talgat Dossanov (Kazakhstan) 12–6 1/2: Defeated Bahman Azizpour (Iran) 20–4 Finals: Defeated Lakha Singh (India) 16–1 Uzbek National Spartakiade (91 kg), Tashkent, Uzbekistan, January 1996: Finals: (no data available) Summer Olympics (91 kg), Atlanta, Georgia, July 1996: 1/16: Lost to Luan Krasniqi (Germany) 4–12 World Junior Championships (91 kg), Havana, Cuba, November 1996: 1/4: Defeated Marat Tovmasian (Armenia) RSC 3 1/2: Lost to Yurkis Sterling (Cuba) 11–14 Trofeo Italia (+81 kg), Naples, Italy, March 1997: Finals: Defeated Giacobbe Fragomeni (Italy) walkover Usti Grand Prix (91 kg), Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic, March 1997: Finals: Defeated Volodymyr Lazebnyk (Ukraine) RSC 1 King's Cup (91 kg), Bangkok, Thailand, April 1997: 1/4: Defeated Waipramong Puiloh (Thailand) walkover 1/2: Defeated Harpal Singh (India) RSC 2 Finals: Defeated Talgat Dossanov (Kazakhstan) RSCH 3 World Championships (91 kg), Budapest, Hungary, October 1997: 1/8: Defeated Sergey Dychkov (Belarus) 15–7 (5 rds) 1/4: Defeated Giacobbe Fragomeni (Italy) 18–4 (5 rds) 1/2: Defeated Maik Hanke (Germany) 12–7 (5 rds) Finals: Defeated Félix Savón (Cuba) 14–4 (5 rds)
Asian Games (91 kg), Bangkok, Thailand, December 1998: 1/4: Defeated Hitra Bahadur (Nepal) RSCH 1 1/2: Defeated Rouhollah Hosseini (Iran) 17–2 Finals: Defeated Muzaffar Iqbal Mirza (Pakistan) RSCH 1
Strandzha Cup (91 kg), Plovdiv, Bulgaria, February 1999: Finals: Defeated Félix Savón (Cuba) 7–2 (4 rds) French Open (91 kg), Calonne-Ricouart – Berck-sur-Mer – Gravelines, France, May 1999: 1/4: Defeated Reynald Zolnierczyk (France) RET 2 1/2: Defeated Sergey Dychkov (Belarus) 10–0 Finals: Defeated Giacobbe Fragomeni (Italy) 3–2 World Championships (91 kg), Houston, Texas, August 1999: 1/16: Defeated Garth da Silva (New Zealand) 9–3 (4 rds) 1/8: Defeated David Turner (Australia) RSC 3 1/4: Lost to Félix Savón (Cuba) 1–9 (4 rds) Asian Championships (91 kg), Tashkent, Uzbekistan, October 1999: 1/4: Defeated Ma Jing Wei (China) RSC 1 1/2: Defeated Rouhollah Hosseini (Iran) 13–5 Finals: Defeated Talgat Dossanov (Kazakhstan) 14–0 Ahmet Cömert Memorial (91 kg), Istanbul, Turkey, April 2000: 1/2: Defeated Mehmet Hendem (Turkey) (4 rds) Finals: Defeated Odlanier Solís (Cuba) 4–3 (4 rds) Summer Olympics (91 kg), Sydney, Australia, September 2000: 1/8: Defeated Oleksandr Yatsenko (Ukraine) 15–2 1/4: Lost to Vladimir Chanturia (Georgia) 12–18 Ahmet Cömert Memorial (+91 kg), Istanbul, Turkey, April–May 2001: 1/8: Defeated Wajid M'Barki (Tunisia) 1/4: (no data available) 1/2: Defeated Mehdi Aouiche (France) Finals: Defeated Oleksiy Mazikin (Ukraine) RET 2 World Championships (+91 kg), Belfast, Northern Ireland, June 2001: 1/8: Defeated Rustam Rygebayev (Kazakhstan) RSCO 3 1/4: Defeated Csaba Kurtucz (Hungary) RSCO 2 1/2: Defeated Vitali Boot (Germany) RSCO 3 Finals: Defeated Oleksiy Mazikin (Ukraine) RSCO 2
Chagaev had a few professional bouts while competing as an amateur. He finished his amateur career having a total of 85 fights under his belt, with a record of 81 wins, 4 losses (no stoppages.)
Professional career 1997–2005: Early career
Chagaev made his professional debut on 21 August 1997, defeating Donnie Penelton by first-round knockout. After defeating Brian Jones three weeks later by second-round KO, Chagaev returned to amateur boxing. He returned to professional boxing in 2001, beating an experienced journeyman Everett Martin on 21 September by fourth-round technical knockout, in what was Chagaev's first and only professional fight in his native Uzbekistan. It was around that time when Chagaev underwent surgery to fix the detachment of the retina in his left eye.
In his next bout, Chagaev faced journeyman Val Smith (10–16, 9 KOs) on 14 April 2002 at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The bout was part of the event that was aired on USA FOX, meaning this was Chagaev's first televised professional boxing match. Chagaev made a quick work of Smith, dropping him three times in the first round, with Smith not being able to beat the count after the third knockdown. 27 days later, Chagaev defeated Chris Isaac (6–3, 6 KOs) by a lopsided unanimous decision with scores 80–71 and 79–72 (twice) in a fight televised by Showtime.
After two back-to-back wins against Val Smith and Chris Isaac, Chagaev, with a 5–0 (4 KOs) record, faced Rob Calloway, who had a record of 42–4 (32 KOs) going into the bout and had never been stopped up to that date. Chagaev appeared to have won the first two rounds and was seemingly going for an early stoppage. Near the end of the third round, Chagaev staggered Calloway and followed with a barrage of punches, forcing Calloway to defenselessly lay on the ropes and prompting the referee to give Calloway a standing count. After examining a cut above Calloway's eye, the referee made the decision to stop the fight. Originally Chagaev was supposed to be declared the winner by third-round TKO, however the decision was overturned after it was established that the wound had been caused by a headbutt. Michigan boxing rule mandated that the fight be called a Technical Draw (TD) since the bout ended by an accidental foul.
In his next fight, Chagaev was supposed to face Robert Wiggins (17–2–1, 10 KOs), however Wiggins was replaced by undefeated Zakeem Graham (9–0–1, 7 KOs). The bout turned out to be Chagaev's last professional fight in the United States. The fight co-main evented a card aired on Showtime as part of the ShoBox: The New Generation boxing program. Graham was active in the first half of each round but Chagaev was blocking most of the shots with arms and gloves. With one minute left in the opening round, Chagaev hurt Graham with a left hook, breaking his nose in the process. Chagaev staggered Graham again at the end of the following round, and then again in the third, with the referee stopping the bout after Graham could not respond to a barrage of shots that followed. Chagaev won by third-round TKO.
Afterwards Chagaev signed with Universum Box-Promotion and relocated to Germany, mostly having fights scheduled there and in Austria. Chagaev admitted that his decision to sign the contract with German promoters was caused by the fact that in the United States he had only had four fights in two years and his career there hadn't had any clear direction. Chagaev returned to the ring on 18 November, facing Daniel Frank. Frank had a 12–5–1 record coming into the bout, scoring all his wins inside the distance, including a fourth-round TKO against Adilson Rodrigues (77–6–1, 61 KOs), and was 2–4 in his last six bouts, losing to long-reigning WBC cruiserweight champion Juan Carlos Gomez, Friday Ahunanya and Samuel Peter. The bout was placed on the undercard of the event that saw Stipe Drews facing Olivier Beard for the European light heavyweight title and was televised by Eurosport. Chagaev knocked Frank out in the second round.
In his first bout of 2004, Chagaev faced Sedreck Fields in a bout scheduled for six rounds. Like previously, the bout took place on the card aired on Eurosport. Each of the four main-event fights had at least one boxer from a post-Soviet country - him and Muhammadqodir Abdullaev were from Uzbekistan while heavyweight Taras Bidenko and bantamweight Volodymyr Sydorenko were from Ukraine. Sedreck had a record of 20–21–1, 14 KOs coming into the bout and had only been stopped by Lawrence Clay-Bey, Robert Davis and Oleg Maskaev in his professional career up to that date. Fields was mostly known for his victories over Shannon Briggs, former IBF world cruiserweight champion Al Cole and Finnish prospect Sami Elovaara and facing numerous boxers from Russia and Belarus. The fight was expected to be a tough challenge for Chagaev who had only 10 professional fights on his record coming into the bout. Chagaev won the bout by unanimous decision. The judges scored the bout 59–55 (twice) and 58–56.
After scoring two knockouts against Alexey Varakin and Wade Lewis inside two rounds each, Chagaev had a rematch with Sedreck Fields four months after their first encounter. The bout was scheduled for eight rounds and took place at Sportzentrum in Telfs, Austria. This was Chagaev's fifth fight in a row aired on Eurosport. The first round was tentative, with Chagaev finding most success with counter shots primarily to the body. Chagaev continued fighting in a counterpunching manner in the second round, ultimately dropping Fields with a left hook behind the ear and throwing off his equilibrium. Fields got up but Chagaev continued his assault, hurting Fields on several occasions and dropping him again with 27 seconds left. Fields barely beat the count, prompting the referee to stop the fight after Fields started running towards Chagaev and did not react to his instructions.