Mahmoud Omeirat Charr vs. Kubrat Venkov Pulev

December seventh in Sofia, Bulgaria. Home-field advantage for the "challenger".

If you're confused, you have absolutely every right to be. We are now entering the boxing Twilight Zone known as the WBA.

If you look at the card on BoxRec, you'll see the main event is listed for 12 rounds but with no hardware on the line. That's because there is currently a feud occurring between that website and this sanctioning organization - meaning all of their championships & lineages have been scrubbed from that database for the present. Okay, so that's one point of confusion down. We have many left to address...

"Isn't the WBA champ Oleksandr Usyk? Wasn't the whole point of his unification with Fury that he wore three of the main four belts and Fury had the WBC green belt and lineal title, meaning the victor came out undisputed?", you ask. Yes, that is all true. Usyk is the real WBA heavyweight champion. The "super" champion, if you will. If you're not familiar with the last couple of decades' worth of m̶a̶c̶h̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ shenanigans of the once proud org - the second oldest and historically second most prestigious in the sport - they are perhaps the worst offenders in the modern diluted championships era, with their proliferation of bogus superfluous titles all being hung with the "world" tag. You have world interim, world regular, and world super - and for all intents & purposes you can ignore all but the latter. Technically, holders of the lesser belts can still lay claim to being "world champs" on the WBA's say-so - but not many serious observers and historians are willing to legitimize any of that.

"Okay fine so there's a Cracker Jack box prize junior cadet ring participation trophy extra WBA heavyweight championship of the, ahem, world. I can accept such a ludicrous thing existing for the sake of argument. Why in the world is Charr the one holding it? The dude has fought just thrice in over seven years!! And none of those were top 15 guys in the division!!", you rail. Hey, don't shoot the messenger. Preaching at the choir. It's madness. But take a deep breath, and bear with me here: in 2017, the WBA sanctioned Charr vs. Alexander Ustinov for their regular belt (Anthony Joshua then held the Super - or, genuine - world title). Why? No clue. Charr was 2-3 in his last 5, all of those bouts eight- or ten-rounders. Ustinov had been in slightly better form, but was on a lengthy run of stopping unranked journeymen with double-digit losses. Anyway, they were deemed worthy of competing for the honor - and Charr beat Ustinov. Great, whatever. He then didn't compete for 3½ years - until finally in late 2021 (as of yesterday, three full years ago) he made a single defense, over Don King's latest padded zero hype job Christopher Lovejoy. The nonagenarian's idea was to set up either Charr or Lovejoy vs. his real pride & joy and hope for hail-Mary salvation at HW, the also unbeaten Trevor Bryan. Now, at the start of the year Bryan had been promoted from interim to regular champ when he defeated Bermane Stivene in January, as Charr was deemed inactive for too long. Bryan vs. Charr had actually been scheduled multiple times since 2019, but scuppered by injuries and visa issues. So how then in May, was Charr making a "defense" against Lovejoy? Simple. Never ones to shy away from proliferation, the WBA named him "champion in recess". So whereas he once had been regular champ and Bryan the interim champ - now Bryan was regular and Charr was regular-in-recess. Dizzy yet? Charr vs. Bryan never materialized, with the American losing his slice of the WBA pie to Dubois in 2022. Dubois made one defense over Kevin Lerena before surrendering his claim when he challenged Usyk. Charr was then reinstated as full regular champion five days later by court ruling.

Mind you, that's a Cliff's Notes summary. I've left out the whole "Fres Oquendo being his mandatory for a while and retaining a top 15 ranking in the WBA for several years despite zero ring appearances" part of the story.

"Alright," you continue, pinching the bridge of your nose to stem the growing migraine, "so how did Pulev get to be involved?". Well, the Bulgarian has been tangled in the web of the WBA system for eight years now - since his stoppage of Sam Peter for the vacant intercontinental title. He defended that once via UD from Kingpin Johnson and vacated to challenge Joshua. He remained high enough in their rankings after that defeat to go for the international title (not to be confused with intercontinental) - failing in his first bid dropping a SD in his rematch with Chisora but finally nabbing it earlier this year by dispatching the 11-1 unheralded Ihor "Hulk" Shevadzutskyi. That, apparently, is good enough to launch him into a world title opportunity. Then again, he is the same ho-hum 3-2 in his last five bouts that Charr was before he fought Ustinov. So yeah, par for the course here.

Any final questions?

"Yeah. Isn't his name Manuel Charr?" - nope, it's Mahmoud. He adopted that as sort of a stage name for a while, somewhat like Adnan Ćatić letting the world think he was "Felix Sturm" for the bulk of his career.

"Wasn't there a thing where Pulev lost his boxing license after he committed sexual assault on a reporter?" - yeah, well. That lasted all of like 4 months. He fought again that same year, and the gap in activity likely would have been the same anyway even without a suspension.

Common opponents:
Kevin Blue Johnson - lost via UD to Charr in 2014, and to Pulev in 2017
Zack Page - lost via UD6 to Pulev in 2009 and via MD8 to Charr in 2010.
Gbenga Oluokun - lost via KO7 to Charr and via UD6 to Pulev, both in 2009.
Serdar Uysal - lost via TKO4 to Pulev in 2009 and via DQ1 to Charr in 2011.

Both the Syrian-German (currently residing in Dubai) and the Bulgarian are in their forties, with a combined age of 83. If by some outlandish miracle Fres Oquendo is able to sue for next crack, we could get a "world championship" where the combatants have a sum total in excess of ninety years.

 

Oh, one more thing - this fight is going to be ass.

Pure. Wet. Dog. Ass.

 

Not holding my breath because Pulev is a lazy lumbering oaf and hasn't stopped anyone since Bogdan Dinu over 5½ years ago - but he could do boxing a huge favor if he handed Charr another stoppage loss. That might be the impetus for Diamond Boy to finally exercise a bit of grace and do us all the favor of retiring.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention - this fight has already been scheduled and postponed twice. Boxing Gods are really committed to making us suffer through.

 

They're both just boring really. In the ring, and personalities.