Charr confronts Vitali at WBC convention

By Boxing News - 11/05/2013 - Comments

By Allan Fox: #8 WBC Manuel Charr (25-1, 15 KO’s) confronted WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (45-2, 41 KO’s) at the WBC 51st annual convention in Bangkok, Thailand to talk to him about a potential rematch between them.

Charr was stopped in the 4th round by Vitali last year in a bloodbath in which Charr suffered a bad cut that caused the fight to be halted. Charr wanted to continue fighting and he wasn’t happy about the stoppage. He still feels that he would have beaten Vitali had the fight been allowed to continue.

Charr said this in part “You didn’t beat me. The doctor stopped it. Do not make the same mistake Lennox Lewis did. You did not win and that thought will haunt you.”

Vitali, 42, reportedly plans on continuing his boxing career, which was likely one of the reasons why he attended the WBC convention. Vitali hasn’t defended his title in over a year since he made optional title defense against Charr. It’s been two years since Vitali defended his title against his mandatory challenger in beating Tomasz Adamek. There are some fans who aren’t happy that the WBC hasn’t stripped Vitali of his title and give him the Emeritus status that they gave former WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward after he hadn’t defended his title for 6 months. Vitali hasn’t defended his WBC title in 14 months and the WBC hasn’t changed his status. It’s unclear when Vitali will be defending his belt, but it’s possible that by the time he does defend a time of 18 months will have gone by since his last defense.

Charr, 29, has won four fights since his loss to Vitali, but his opposition has been largely poor. Charr would move up the rankings a lot quicker if he were to take on a top contender in the division instead of the journeyman level fighters that he’s been beating.

It’s not likely that Vitali will ever face Charr again, because there’s no reason for the fight. There was no interest other than Germany for Vitali to have fought Charr last year, and nothing has changed since then. Vitali needs to face his mandatory challenger Bermane Stiverne at some point. If the WBC lets Vitali continue to fight optional defenses then it’s going to be really tough on the other fighters in the division because they’ve been waiting to get a shot at the title for ages.



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