Ruslan Chagaev  Ruslan Shamilevich Chagaev (; ; ); born 19 October 1978) is a retired Uzbek professional boxer of Tatarian descent who competed from 2001 to 2016. He held the WBA heavyweight title twice, from 2007 to 2009 and from 2014 to 2016, and was the first Asian boxer to win a world heavyweight title by any of the four major sanctioning bodies. Chagaev is one of a few professional boxers to resume his amateur career after a few professional bouts in 1997. Chagaev was reinstated as an amateur by AIBA the following year as his professional bouts were declared exhibitions. 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, then lost 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 after failing to pay sanctioning fees. On 28 July 2016 he announced his retirement from boxing due to ongoing eye injuries. As an amateur, Chagaev won gold medals at the 2001 World Championships and 1999 Asian Championships, in the heavyweight and super-heavyweight divisions respectively. 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. 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. Asian Championships (91 kg), Tashkent, Uzbekistan, October 1995:  Uzbek National Spartakiade (91 kg), Tashkent, Uzbekistan, January 1996: Summer Olympics (91 kg), Atlanta, Georgia, July 1996:  World Junior Championships (91 kg), Havana, Cuba, November 1996:  Trofeo Italia (+81 kg), Naples, Italy, March 1997:  Usti Grand Prix (91 kg), Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic, March 1997:  King's Cup (91 kg), Bangkok, Thailand, April 1997:  World Championships (91 kg), Budapest, Hungary, October 1997:  Asian Games (91 kg), Bangkok, Thailand, December 1998:   French Open (91 kg), Calonne-Ricouart - Berck-sur-Mer - Gravelines, France, May 1999: World Championships (91 kg), Houston, Texas, August 1999:  Asian Championships (91 kg), Tashkent, Uzbekistan, October 1999:  Ahmet Cömert Memorial (91 kg), Istanbul, Turkey, April 2000: Summer Olympics (91 kg), Sydney, Australia, September 2000:  Ahmet Cömert Memorial (+91 kg), Istanbul, Turkey, April-May 2001:  World Championships (+91 kg), Belfast, Northern Ireland, June 2001:  Chagaev had a few professional bouts while competing as an amateur.