Nikolai Valuev

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
Nikolai Valuev
Statistics
Real name Nikolai Vladimirovich Valuev
Nickname The Russian Giant;
The Beast From the East
Weight Heavyweight
Nationality Flag of Russia Russian
Birth date August 21, 1973
Birth place St. Petersburg, Russia
Style Orthodox
Boxing record
Total fights 47
Wins 47
Wins by KO 34
Losses 0
Draws 0
No contests 0

Nikolai Valuev (Russian: Николай Валуев; born August 21, 1973) is the first Russian professional heavyweight boxing champion and the current holder of the WBA title. His alias used to be "The Beast from the East" but he now prefers to be styled "The Russian Giant".

Valuev is the tallest and heaviest recognized champion to this day, standing at 214 cm (about 7 feet) tall [1] and weighing in at 145-150 kg (320-330 lb).

In 1993 Valuev became a professional boxer and he won the WBA title December 17 2005 with a points decision over American John Ruiz. He successfully defended the title 3 June 2006 against Owen Beck, October 8, 2006 against Monte Barrett and 21 January 2007 against Jameel McCline. His record currently stands at 46 wins and no defeats, with one no contest.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Valuev was born in Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg in a Russian-Tatar family. He has a wife, Galina, 5-year-old son and daughter. During his youth, he played basketball, and was also a discus thrower.

[edit] Boxing career

In 1993, Nikolai became a pro-boxer and had his debut match against American John Morton, beating him by knockout in the fourth round. In 1999 he captured the Russian Heavyweight title and in 2000 he won a Pan-Asian title.

Valuev propelled himself into a position to fight for a world title with victories over Bob Mirovic, Otis Tisdale, Paolo Vidoz, Gerald Nobles, Attila Levin, and Clifford Etienne. In August 2005

[edit] Title bout vs. Ruiz

On December 17, 2005, Valuev squared off with WBA heavyweight champion John Ruiz, and won a controversial twelve-round majority-decision. This victory came after narrowly defeating Larry Donald on points in the title elimination bout. These two fights were seen as controversial, being quite close, and showing Valuev's vulnerability to opponents who are capable of getting inside, while also able to avoid his trademark slow knockout punches. In the last days of December 2005, however, it was revealed that he had been fighting Ruiz one-handed, due to an injury of his right hand. This had been carefully concealed by Valuev's camp, in fear of losing the chance of fighting for a world title. Two judges favoured Valuev by scores of 116-114 and 116-113, while the third saw the fight as a 114-114 draw — enough to give Valuev the title[2].

[edit] Title defense vs. Beck

On Saturday 3 June 2006, in his first defence of the WBA heavyweight championship, Nikolai Valuev (then 44-0, 33 KOs) defeated challenger Owen Beck (25-3, 18 KOs) by a third-round TKO in Hannover, Germany. Before this fight, the small sized Beck had only fought one contender, where he was knocked out by Monte Barrett. The boxing press and fans outside of Germany pondered the WBA's logic in allowing a boxer with such little qualification to challenge for a world title.

[edit] Title defense vs. Barrett

On Saturday 7 October 2006, Valuev fought Monte Barrett and defeated him with a technical knockout in the 11th round, for his (Valuev's) 45th win. Barrett was knocked down twice in the 8th and once in the 11th round, but managed to get up. After being knocked down for the final time in the eleventh round, his trainer James Ali Basheer jumped into the ring to stop the fight.

Barrett had been inactive for over a year and had lost his last fight, a comprehensive points defeat to Hasim Rahman. Again the quality of Valuev's challengers was brought into question.

[edit] Title defense vs. McCline

On January 20th, 2007, Valuev fought Jameel McCline (38-6-3, 23 KO’s) in St. Jakob-Halle, Basel, Switzerland. Valuev won the match, successfully defending his title, after McCline stumbled and severely hurt his knee, resulting in a knock out in the third round.

[edit] Future title defense vs. Chagaev

Valuev's next opponent will be Ruslan Chagaev from Uzbekistan. In the tournament to determine who would next challenge Valuev for his title, Chagaev beat John Ruiz, who lost his championship to Valuev in 2005. The title defense will be held on April 14, 2007.[3]

[edit] Record

Despite his imposing size and unblemished record, many boxing experts and writers doubt Valuev's ability as a boxer, and some have labeled him a 'freak show.'[2] Against Ruiz, two judges favoured Valuev by scores of 116-114 and 116-113, while the third saw the fight as a 114-114 draw—enough to give Valuev the title (see [5]). Valuev is only 33 (2 years younger than Vitali Klitschko). Valuev is rated sixth by fightnews.com (higher than Hasim Rahman, the former WBC champion). Valuev is also ranked second on the IBO ranking list IBO boxing rankings—higher than Lamon Brewster (U.S.), Hasim Rahman (U.S.), Kirk Johnson, (CAN) and James Toney (U.S.). Boxrec.com ranks Nikolai Valuev #3 in the world. Valuev had one no contest bout against Andreas Sidon in 1999. Nobody knows exactly what happened. Valuev was first declared winner, then a draw was announced, then the referee left after 3 rounds. This bout lasted full 6 rounds as scheduled but the last 3 rounds were not even 3 minutes long. The bout was called a no contest (NC) by EBU. It was Sidon who persuaded Valuev to continue fighting after referee left.

[edit] Car parking incident

In January 2006 Valuev was accused of assault by a security guard at the Spartak Ice Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia. The guard, Yuri Sergeyev, claims Valuev's wife parked her car inappropriately, and a request to move the car led to an argument. Sergeyev alleges Valuev then appeared and assaulted him. Valuev however said his wife was crying and that he only grabbed the guard by the collar, adding "If I were to had actually hit him, as some people are saying, the consequences for this person would have been more serious. I think I acted as any normal man in my place would have done." No criminal investigation was ever launched by local police.[4] Sergeyev was admitted to City Hospital No 3 where he was diagnosed as suffering from "closed craniocerebral injury, thorax and cerebral contusion". He threatened to launch a private civil suit against Valuev. [5]

[edit] Trivia

  • Although Valuev is the heaviest and tallest heavyweight champion in history there are other less successful boxers of similar stature in recorded history: Ewart Potgieter, was 219 cm (7 ft 2 in) and 152 kg (335½ pounds) at weigh-in for his match with James Parker in 1955. George Mitu, Jim Cully (7 ft 2 in, 219 cm), and John Rankin (7 ft 4 in, 226 cm, fought only one bout which he won) were all over 7 feet (213 cm), and Jimmy Black weighed in at 163 kg (360 pounds) prior to his match against Claude McBride on 1 June 1971. [6]
  • Since 2000, Valuev has been trained by Armenian coach Manuel Gabrielyan.
  • Valuev wrote a book recently in Russian. called "My 12 Rounds" with help of a prominent Russian journalist Konstantin Osipov. The book talks about his life in general and his boxing career in particular.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Don King Productions, 21 October 2006.
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ Chagaev to get title shot by April!, Boxnews, January 17, 2007.
  4. ^ [2]
  5. ^ [3]
  6. ^ [4], [5]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Preceded by
John Ruiz		 WBA Heavyweight Champion
17 December 2005 –		 Succeeded by
..
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../n/i/k/Nikolai_Valuev_5828.html"