A secondary heavyweight title will be on the line less than a month after a clash for the division’s undisputed championship.
BoxingScene.com has learned that WBA ‘regular’ champion Mahmoud Charr will hit the road for a planned title defense against former two-time title challenger Kubrat Pulev. The matchup will take place on a date yet to be determined in March, in Pulev’s native Bulgaria.
Dan Rafael of Big Fight Weekend was the first to report the development.
Charr (34-4, 20KOs) was reinstated as secondary champion per a court settlement reached last September. The deal stipulated that he next had to defend his title against Brooklyn’s Jarrell Miller, who passed up the opportunity to face Daniel Dubois on the Dec. 23 Doomsday card in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. . Miller suffered the first loss of his career in a tenth round knockout, albeit in a much more lucrative opportunity.
It marked the continuation of a frustrating quest for Charr, who has struggled to get the fights he craved and passionately pursued over the years.
Pulev (30-3, 14KOs) accepted the offer after several heavyweights before him turned down the opportunity. The 42-year-old former unified title challenger bounced back from a July 2022 twelve-round loss to Derek Chisora, who reportedly turned down the opportunity to fight Charr, with a ten-round shutout victory over Poland’s Andrzej Wawrzyk on July 14. December in Costa Mesa. California.
Before the setback against Chisora, Pulev’s only losses in his career came at the championship level. He suffered a fifth-round knockout against then WBA, IBF and WBO lineal and unified heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in November 2014. Eight wins followed before being knocked out in the ninth round by Anthony Joshua, who successfully defended the WBA, IBF and WBO championships. WBO belts at a December 2020 meeting at the OVO Arena Wembley.
Charr has fought just three times since winning the vacant secondary title in November 2017 over Aleksandr Ustinov. He has been out of the ring since a December 2022 second-round knockout of Nuri Seferi in Hamburg, Germany, the headquarters of Charr’s promoter, Erol Ceylan’s EC Boxing.
The fight will mark his first title defense in two separate reigns. He was eventually stripped of the title for failing to defend it, which was largely attributed to a twice-canceled fight against Trevor Bryan. Both consequences were due to Charr not having the necessary P1 Visa documentation to travel to the US for the event promoted by Don King.
Charr sued King and the WBA and sought reparations, leading to his second and current title reign.
Interestingly, the fight will come after an undisputed champion is potentially crowned in the February 17 undisputed heavyweight championship between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk. England’s Fury (34-0-1, 24KOs) will defend his and WBC lineal crown against Ukraine’s Usyk (21-0, 14KOs), who puts his unified WBA, IBF and WBO titles on the line. Charr will be a mandatory challenger awaiting the winner, although behind IBF number one contender Filip Hrgovic and WBO interim champion Zhilei Zhang in the rotation.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. X (formerly Twitter): @JakeNDaBox
