Scheduled Helsinki heavyweight world title fight cancelled on health grounds

No sign of giant Nikolai Valuyev in the ring, but there were still fireworks on show after Finnish boxer Juho Tolppola was disqualified in his EU light welterweight title bout

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On Saturday evening, boxing fans should have been treated to a WBA heavyweight world title bout between the reigning champion Nikolai Valuyev of Russia and the Uzbek challenger and "champion in recess" Ruslan Chagayev in the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki.
      Some 6,000 tickets had been sold for the meeting - billed as "Revenge of the Giant" - between the 213 cm (7' 0") champion and Chagayev, who had actually beaten Valuyev in an earlier title bout in 2007, before losing his outright claim to the title after injury.
     
However, in a last-minute scandal after Friday's weigh-in, it transpired that Chagayev had failed a medical examination by the Finnish boxing authorities, owing to a viral infection, Hepatitis B.
      Valuyev refused to meet Chagayev under the circumstances, since there is always a chance that the infection could be passed from one fighter to another through blood contact.
      Valuyev did not want to take the risk, and after consultation with his team, he elected not to fight.
     
The immediate reaction of the promoters was to say the entire evening - with several Finnish boxers on the supporting bill - would be cancelled and that ticket holders would be refunded.
      As it happened, the event did go ahead without the main attraction, albeit with an appreciably smaller crowd of around 2,500 in attendance.
      Those who showed up got to see Finnish heavyweight Robert Helenius win his eighth professional bout by a knockout over Scott Gammer of Wales, but the final match of the evening proved to be almost as much of a fiasco as the last-ditch cancellation of the main event.
     
Finnish professional boxer Juha Tolppola was fighting Italy's Giuseppe Lauri for the European Union light welterweight title that Lauri won in 2007, but the bout was ended in the 10th round when Tolppola was disqualified by the referee for repeated infringements.
      As if this were not enough, Tolppola's enraged father then leapt onto the canvas and tried to attack the referee while the predominantly Finnish audience whistled their derision and threw plastic bottles and other objects into the ring.
     


Links:
  Revenge of the Giant
  Nikolai Valuyev (Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat