Vitali Klitschko to fight Manuel Charr on September 8th in Moscow, Russia

By Boxing News - 07/02/2012 - Comments

Image: Vitali Klitschko to fight Manuel Charr on September 8th in Moscow, RussiaBy William Mackay: Despite pretty much no one having any interested in seeing this fight, WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (44-2, 40 KO’s) is going ahead with his plans of fighting unbeaten #7 WBC Manuel Charr (21-0, 11 KO’s) on September 8th at the Olympisky Sport Hall, in Moscow, Russia. This is a horrible mismatch, and one of Vitali’s poorer fights of his career.

Charr, 27, is ranked in the top 10 by the World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation, but in reality he should probably be ranked no higher than 25 in the world, if that. He’s never fought anyone beyond the 2nd tier, and struggled to beat Gbenga Oloukun, and looked equally horrible in defeating a past his best Danny Williams last year. In terms of talent, Charr is perhaps a step below Albert Sosnowski, one of Vitali’s victims from two years ago.

It’s pretty obvious that Vitali has selected Charr because he’s based in Germany where Vitali fights out of, and he’s got an unbeaten record. But more importantly, Charr is no threat to beating Vitali like other fighters, such as David Haye, Tyson Fury, Kubrat Pulev and Bermane Stiverne. A fight between Vitali and any one of those fighters would be a lot more interesting than the Vitali vs. Charr fight, which shapes up to be a huge mismatch. Even if Vitali’s injures a shoulder like he did against Dereck Chisora in his win last February, Vitali can beat Charr one-handed if he has to. It doesn’t matter if Vitali’s right hand is injured; he’d beat Charr with his left and it would be easy.

The reason boxing fans are against Vitali fighting an overmatched opponent like Charr is because this could be Vitali’s last fight of his career. He’s running for a Parliament job in Ukraine and if he gets the position, there’s a high possibility he’ll retire from boxing. He said as much in the past. However, Vitali could be having seconds thoughts about retiring, saying to ESPN “I would like to continue to fight and I will make my decision after the election.”

Vitali considers this an excellent fight for some reason. He said to ESPN “I am sure it will be an unforgettable show.”

I don’t know about that. I just hope they include a decent undercard fight for a change.



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