Boxing Champ Valuyev Found Guilty
By Irina Titova
Staff Writer
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Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Former boxing champion Nikolai Valuyev in a file photograph from 2007.
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St. Petersburg’s Kalininsky district civil court ruled Wednesday that Russia’s first professional heavyweight boxing champion Nikolai Valuyev damaged the health of a security guard at the Spartak sports complex and ordered the 7-foot, 1-inch-tall so-called “Beast from the East” to pay 130,000 rubles ($5,320) in compensation. Valuyev must pay 100,000 rubles in “moral damages” to the guard, Yury Sergeyev, and 30,000 rubles in fines, Interfax reported. The court rejected evidence from witnesses in Valuyev’s defense but recognised extenuating circumstances because Valuyev volunteered to cover Sergeyev’s medical expenses after the incident. Representatives of both sides said they intended to appeal the decision. Sergeyev’s side wants Valuyev jailed for 18 months and 1 million rubles ($40,900) in compensation. Valuyev’s side said they were dissatisfied that the court did not “thoroughly investigate all the important conditions of the case,” Sergei Solomonov, Valuyev’s representative, told Sport Segodnya newspaper. The statute of limitations for criminal charges to be filed in the case runs out on Jan. 20, but the civil case can be continued, Solomonov said. The January 2006 incident between Valuyev and Sergeyev occurred after Valuyev’s wife parked her car in the wrong place near the Spartak sports complex. The security guard made a remark to her and a in few minutes Valuyev arrived on the scene. In Sergeyev’s words the giant boxer began to beat him on his head and the 60-year-old man was subsequently hospitalized. Valuyev said that he simply shook Sergeyev for insulting his wife. The guard fell to the ground and probably hit himself against something, Valuyev said. Valuyev — who earned the nickname the “Beast from the East” when he became the tallest and heaviest heavyweight world boxing champion in history in 2005 — was not in court Wednesday because he in Berlin training for a fight with Belorussian heavyweight boxer Sergei Lyakhovich. They are due to meet to compete for the title of official challenger for the WBA title on Feb 16. The title currently belongs to Uzbek boxer Ruslan Chagayev. Valuyev lost his title to Chagayev in 2007 but last year went on to film a role in a new Russian movie in which he stars as a talented boxer who loses his memory after a car accident. The as-yet-unreleased movie, “Stone Head” (“Kamennaya Bashka”), was made by acclaimed director Fillip Yankovsky who said Valuyev showed himself to be a talented actor who managed to not only play a sportsman but to perform the drama of life as a big man, Moskovsky Komsomolets said. Yankovsky said he could hardly believe Valuyev would beat a security guard because the boxer is a kind and decent man in everyday life.
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