Heavyweight titleholder Ruslan Chagaev is on the mend and was cleared by his doctor to resume training this week, promoter Universum Box-Promotions announced.

Chagaev was supposed to face Sultan Ibragimov on Oct. 13 in Moscow in the division’s first unification fight since the Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield rematch in 1999, but he withdrew on Aug. 2 because of an undisclosed medical issue described by Universum as "an acute inflammation of the body."

When Chagaev, 28, pulled out of the fight with Ibragimov, he was replaced by 44-year-old Holyfield, who will attempt to become a five-time heavyweight titleist on Oct. 13.

Despite missing out on the fight with Ibragimov, Chagaev hopes to fight before the end of the year.

"I feel healthy and am anxious to box," Chagaev said. "The physicians say that I am free to start training. Finally, I’m ready to go again. I want to get into the ring again and look forward to my next fight. It’s too bad that the title fight against Ibragimov had to be called off.

"I hope that the big opportunity for my second belt will come quickly so I can reach my goal of becoming the champion of several federations," he said. "However, for now I’m only looking at my next fight. If everything goes as planned, I can still make the first defense of my WBA world champion’s belt this year."

The Uzbekistan native based in Germany won a majority decision to lift the belt from Nikolai Valuev on April 14 in Germany.

Boris Grinberg, Ibragimov’s manager, was disgusted when he heard that Chagaev planned to resume training and fight this year.

"This is disgraceful," Grinberg said. "We were led to believe that this so-called champion was suffering from some severe sickness that was going to keep him out of action indefinitely, and despite the fact that we put a lot of time, effort and money into making this fight happen, we believed his excuse. But now that we heard that Chagaev is coming back so soon, it’s obvious that his ailment wasn’t ’an acute inflammation of the body’ but really just a complete lack of heart and that he has no intention of fighting the premier heavyweight in the sport, Sultan Ibragimov."