By Scott Gilfoid: Former heavyweight world title challenger Manuel Charr and Tyson Fury were involved in a slightly heated discussion on Sunday in Cologne, Germany at the fitness expo FIBO. Charr, 32, challenged the overweight Fury to a fight. The 6’3” Charr got right up to the face of the 6’9” Fury. It looked very theatrical. Afterwards, Fury posted a photo of him and Charr standing side by side, smiling like they were best of friends.
Unfortunately for Charr, Fury doesn’t look like he’s going to be back inside the ring anytime soon, and possibly not until 2018. Fury, 29, still needs to get his boxing license back, and he’s got to take off a lot of weight before he’ll be ready to fight again. Fury still looks 100 pounds overweight. It’s going to take ages for Fury to burn all that fat off before he can fight again.
Me with the diamond 💎 boy after our heated confrontation 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Why so serious.😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎 pic.twitter.com/SFUj4cv1Yz— TYSON2FASTFURY (@Tyson_Fury) April 9, 2017
“Hey, Tyson, you said you want to box again, here I am, I a number 6 in the WBA rankings, You can fight me,” said Charr.
Charr is ranked #6 by the World Boxing Association despite having lost 2 out of his last 5 fights. When you lose that many fights, you probably shouldn’t be rated so highly. The WBA has their reasons for ranking Charr so high with their organization, and I don’t begin to try and understand why.
All I know is Charr was knocked out by cruiserweight Mairis Briedis in the 5th round two years ago in August 2015. Since that fight, Charr has won his last two fights against little known fighters Andrei Mazanik and Sefer Seferi. Those aren’t the type of heavyweights that you would think that Charr would need to best for him to be rated No.6 by the WBA. Charr is ranked above Jarrell Miller and Kubrat Pulev in the WBA’s rankings. Based on Charr’s lack of success inside the ring in the last 3 years, I don’t see how he can be rated No.6. His record is 2-3 in his last 5 fights. How do get a top 10 ranking with a record like that? I do not understand that at all.
“I want to fight you, Diamond Boy, whenever you want, through you’re too small,” Fury said
When Fury does eventually resume his boxing career, someone like Charr would be ideal. It would be a nice tune-up level fight for Fury along the same lines as his fights in the past against Joey Abell and Christian Hammer.
Charr fought for a world title against former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in losing by a 4th round TKO in 2012. The fight was stopped to Charr suffering a bad cut over his right eyebrow. It wasn’t a competitive fight. Charr was knocked out by Alexander Povetkin in the 7th round in May 2014. Charr next lost to Johann Duhaupas in April 2015. He also lost to Mairis Briedis in 2015.
If Fury comes into a fight with Charr out of shape, he might lose to him. I don’t see that happening, but you would have to give Charr a chance of maybe outworking an out of shape Fury.
Charr is ranked high enough in the WBA’s rankings to where he could get a title shot in the near future. There was talk of Charr fighting for the interim WBA title. It’s unclear what happened with that. It would have been interesting Charr to be fighting for the interim WBA title with him having lost 2 out of his last 5 fights. The WBA is the organization that has more than one champion in some of their weight classes.