Dsalita WBA “world” heavyweight champion Mahmoud Charr’s first title defense in six years will be a road game. Charr, who was reinstated last August after a lengthy legal battle with the sanctioning body, will meet former two-time title challenger Kubrat Pulev on March 30th in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Charr (34-4, 20 KO) defeated the incredibly large Alexander Ustinov for the secondary belt in 2017, but things quickly spiraled when Trevor Bryan was named his mandatory challenger. Multiple bait-and-switches from Don King kept Charr out of action until 2021 and led to Charr filing suit against King, who then screwed Charr once again and convinced the WBA to strip him. Charr’s lawsuit expanded, the WBA grudgingly gave him his belt back and ordered him to fight Jarrell Miller, Miller elected to fight Daniel Dubois and allegedly steal back a repossessed truck instead, and now here we are.
Pulev (30-3, 14 KO) is 1-2 in actual boxing since a 2020 loss to Anthony Joshua, beating Jerry Forrest and Andrzej Wawrzyk while dropping a questionable split decision to Derek Chisora in their rematch. The reason I specify “actual” boxing is that he took a brief detour to brutalize overcooked former UFC champion Frank Mir and was gearing up to meet another overcooked former UFC champion in Junior Dos Santos before Triad Combat imploded.
Is this fight in any way meaningful to the division? Only in the sense that the winner will either fight for the real belt once the newly crowned undisputed champ vacates or be directly upgraded like Gervonta Davis was. Both are well past their best and pose no threat to the elite, though Pulev’s still skilled enough at 42 to beat bottom-feeders.
It is, however, very funny.
