You may find it hard to refer to this one as a world heavyweight title fight, at least while keeping your face straight, but Mahmoud Charr and Kubrat Pulev are again set to meet, with Charr’s, shall we say, spurious claim to the WBA heavyweight title to be at stake on December 7 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Fight Freaks broke this news.
As fans may recall, Charr, chronically inactive – just three fights since 2017 – was to have defended his “regular” strap against Pulev in March, only for Charr to suffer (another) injury and have to pull out.
39-year-old Charr (he turns 40 next month) seems to have been around for a long, long time, even though the German-Syrian warrior hasn’t been fighting much these past seven years. “Diamond Boy” was last seen stopping Nuri Seferi in December of 2022, and you have to go back to November of 2017 to find the fight that saw Charr, 34-4(20), win his “world” title – this was when he won a 12 round UD over Alexander Ustinov.
“Bulgarian Cobra” Pulev is now even older than Charr at age 43, and the former two-time world title challenger (legit versions, Pulev losing to Wladimir Klitschko in 2014, and to Anthony Joshua in 2020, with both men stopping him) is 31-3(14). Last seen winning a very dull decision over Ihor Shevadzutskyi, this on March 30, the match a late sub for Pulev’s challenge of Charr, Pulev is still pretty durable, but slow of hand and foot.
Who knows what kind of a fight we will get on December 7, that’s if Charr actually, really does manage to get into the ring to fight this time. Laughably, some reports say the winner will be “in line to fight full WBA heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk.” Not a chance.
It remains to be seen if any US or UK TV coverage will be in place to pick this one up (and whether or not a P-P-V fee will actually be in place!) Pulev or Charr, who do you like?
