Sauerland Sets Up Povetkin vs Chagaev, Helenius vs Liakhovich Double-Header

Sauerland Event has made official a heavyweight double-header for August 27 in Erfurt, Germany, featuring a pair of decent match-ups.

In what will be seen as the night's main event, former Russian Olympic star Alexander Povetkin (21-0, 15 KO) faces ex-titlist Ruslan Chagaev (27-1-1, 17 KO) for the vacant WBA "regular" heavyweight title. The WBA put this title in the mix after Wladimir Klitschko unified his belts with David Haye's WBA belt, making Klitschko their "super champion" and allowing them to milk money from other sources. Povetkin has long been on the cusp of a title shot, and in fact signed to fight Klitschko twice before quite frankly running from the fights both times. Chagaev has been a WBA favorite for years and was part of their seemingly never-ending circle of torture with Nikolai Valuev and John Ruiz, all vying for the belt over multiple fights.

It's the type of matchup we've been hoping Povetkin would take. After signing Teddy Atlas to train him a while back, Povetkin has run off a string of weak fights since beating Eddie Chambers in January 2009 to earn his shot at Klitschko. Instead of fighting Wladimir -- or any legit contender -- Povetkin instead faced Taurus Sykes, Jason Estrada, Leo Nolan, Javier Mora, Teke Oruh and Nicolai Firtha. He also had an unsanctioned fight somewhere in Pennsylvania against long-shot veteran Bruce Seldon, who didn't have a boxing license. Many have felt that Atlas' handling of Povetkin was suspect at best and damaging to the fighter at worst, but recently on Friday Night Fights, Atlas said he would not be training Povetkin for this fight due to his commitments to ESPN's boxing programming.

Chagaev won a WBA eliminator last year against Kali Meehan, which was an eliminator because Don King (Meehan's promoter) still has some pull in the heavyweight division.

The second fight will feature Robert Helenius (15-0, 10 KO) taking on another former titlist, Sergei Liakhovich (25-3, 16 KO). Helenius knocked out Samuel Peter in his last outing to spring into contention, while Liakhovich, now 35, has faded from contention over the years. He picked up the WBO title from Lamon Brewster in a great fight back in 2006, but was dramatically stopped by Shannon Briggs in the 12th round of his first title defense. Since that loss to Briggs in November 2006, Liakhovich has fought just three times, missing all of 2007. He lost to Valuev in 2008, beat Jeremy Evans in 2009, and last year defeated Evans Quinn. Earlier this year, Liakhovich was in talks to face Vitali Klitschko this summer, but Klitschko decided to just wait for his September bout with Tomasz Adamek.