The only praise Chagaev is due is for his beard (even though he got dropped less than four minutes in). His gameplan was a case of "nice try, but no cigar" - trying to weave in cautiously and nail Wlad with potshots a'la Ibragimov-Briggs is as good a guess as the next guy's on how to effectively work against him...nobody else has figured anything out since he hooked up with Manny so really any new strategy can't be called a bad strategy...this particular one just didn't pay off. I wouldn't call it a non-effort, nor did he leave it all in the ring...it was a game, tactical and simply far-less-than-good-enough effort. I think people wanting to give him credit are marveling at how he lasted long enough to even make it to the point where he was sitting on his stool between the 9th and 10th mulling over whether it was worth it. The story of the night is 1) how quickly and nastily Wlad is now releasing his cross over the jab and 2) the beard of Chagaev. Unfortunately, this is ESB so the story instead is 1) how boring Wlad still is (OMG!) and 2) the heart (lack thereof) of Chagaev.
Well,he gave it a try and surely didnt enter the ring to collect an easy earned paycheck. He was out of his shoes vs Wlad,but I am absolutely positive that he can be very competitive against any other fighter out there(apart from Wlad's brother Vitaly of course). Nah! Come to think of it Povetkin would probably school him,too. On the other hand I would certainly bet a considerable sum of money on him in a fight against Haye.
TBH the gameplan Chagaev came in with was the one I though he should try before the fight and I thought he would have more success with it than he did have, so I have to give Wlad respect for being able to cope with that tactic better than I thought he would. I was critical of Wlad after the Rahman fight because I though he was clearly hurting Rahman right from the start of the fight but waited until he was practically out on his feet already before stepping it up in any way. Tonight he (WK) was fighting a better quality opponent seemed to have a much better balance between controlling the pace & distance and showing his authority and more aggression - it seemed to be a much improved performance overall and I reckon he would have had Rahman out in about 3 or 4 rounds if he had fought the same way against him. I am certainly more looking forward to his next fight now than I usually am. I'll be surprised if this isn't the end of Chagaev at the world level. I haven't heard any quotes from him or his camp but with the Hep B and all I think this was his big chance. He did show a good beard tonight but it's partly because I can't see him getting another fight like this that I was surprised he didn't go down with more of a bang.
I hate to say it..they stayed in there too long.I love Joe, but let's use common sense. Ruslan wasn't there with Micheal Spinks.
Ummm, lets not get carried away with 'one of the greatest of all time' shall we. This fight highlighted how utterly **** the division is I'm afraid. If Chagaev is third best its a very sad state of affairs. Granted Wlad was way bigger than him and fought a great defensive fight. But Chag didn't land one meaningful punch, not one. He was way out of his depth in there, he had no clue how to get inside. To be fair he was game throughout and had decent head movement at times. But this division is terrible outside of the Klitschko's who to be fair are pulling far away from the rest. And I still say Haye has the best chance of beating Wlad. ROFL to those of you who said Chagaev is a harder fight for Wladimir. He had nothing in his arsenal whatsoever to trouble Wlad, nothing and that was abundantly clear. Haye actually posesses you know, an offensive arsenal. He can land big shots lunging in at speed, and can counter over the jab. He has much better movement than Chag and would make Wlad be the aggressor I imagine, which would suit him better. Haye has a much better chance than anybody of landing big on this guy. Thats what it boils down to. Chag and Povetkin may well be more accomplished HW fighters, but against Wlad that's not enough, you need a bit of X factor, which Chagaev was painfully lacking; as does virtually every 'contender' in this crap division. The Povetkin fight will be a rerun of last night, mark my words.
I like him!! He didnt give up, didnt even blink when wlad punched him. I was damn impressed. To bad he didnt fight to well