By Jim Dower: German based fringe contender Manuel Charr (20-0, 11 KO’s) looks to keep his unbeaten record intact tonight against Taras Bydenko (28-4, 12 KO’s) in a 12 round bout. Charr, 27, will be defending his World Boxing Council International Silver heavyweight title for the first time after having won it with an 8th round stoppage in his last fight against Marcelo Luiz Nascimento last November.

Charr, #11 WBA, #13 WBC, has decent power but not much in the way of hand speed. He’s got good size at 6’3 1/2″, but he’s not exactly wowed in his wins over 2nd tier journeyman like Danny Williams, Robert Hawkins, Ramon Hayes, Adnan Serin and Gbenga Oloukon. His management team are looking to keep Charr winning so that he can eventually get a title shot, hopefully against one of the Klitschko brothers. At 27, Charr is in the position to wait out Vitali Klitschko to try and be one of the major players to shoot for the WBC title once Vitali gives it up. However, Charr doesn’t match up well with the bigger heavyweights like David Price, Robert Helenius and Tyson Fury and it will be a real test to see how he does against one of them.

Bydenko, 6’4″, will have a slight size advantage over Charr, but it’ll be meaningless unless he can find some power to compete against him. Bydenko was stopped in back to back fights against Denis Boytsov and Robert Helenius in 2009. He’s since won his last two fights against Christian Hammer and Pavels Dolgovs. Charr presents a step above those 2nd tier fighters but not a huge step up. This is definitely a winnable fight for Bydenko, but it’s going to be hard for him to get a decision in Germany.