Russia's Valuev beats Holyfield, retains WBA title

ZURICH, December 21 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's WBA Heavyweight World Champion Nikolai Valuev won a majority points decision on Saturday to defeat four-time champion Evander Holyfield and retain his WBA champion title.

The judges scored the fight 114-114, 116-112, 115-114 in favor of Valuev, 35, dubbed The Russian Giant, who now has a record of 50-1, with 34 knockouts.

Valuev became Russia's first world heavyweight champion in December 2005 when he defeated John Ruiz. Last year he was just a few steps behind the record of legendary Rocky Marciano, who retired at 49-0 as boxing's only ever undefeated heavyweight champion, but lost his title bout to Ruslan "White Tyson" Chagaev of Uzbekistan, suffering the first and the only one as of today defeat.

Valuev and Chagaev later scheduled a rematch, which did not take place due to Chagaev's injury.

All four heavyweight championship titles currently belong to boxers from the former Soviet Union: Ukraine's Wladimir Klitschko holds the IBF and WBO titles, his older brother Vitali Klitschko holds the WBC belt, and Russia's Nikolai Valuev is the WBA champion.