By Jim Dower: Former heavyweight title challenger Manuel Charr (21-1, 11 KO’s) will be facing 34-year-old journeyman Konstantin Airich (24-8-2, 18 KO’s) on Friday night, December 21st for the vacant WBC Meditierranean and WBC Baltic heavyweight titles at the Maritim Hotel, in Cologne, Germany. Airich has lost three out of his last four fights in losses to Odlanier Solis, Vyacheslav Glazkov and Sergey Maslobojev.
Charr, 28, fought last September, losing to WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko by a 4th round knockout in a one-sided fight. Charr was knocked down in the 2nd round and the fight was stopped in the 4th due to a bad cut on the right eyebrow of Charr.
It was a fight that looked like two guys from the opposite sides of the spectrum. Charr looked like little more than a 2nd tier fighter with an inflated unbeaten record built on wins against journeyman, while Vitali looked like a world class fighter toying with a guy that didn’t belong in the ring with him.
Charr is still ranked high by the World Boxing Council at #8, and he’ll likely get another shot at the WBC title in a year or so if he can resume beating the guys that his German promoters feed to him. It’s not likely that the 6’3” 245 pound Charr can ever win a world title, but he’s going to hang around for a while as one of the contenders.
Airech has good power if nothing else and he could surprise Charr in this fight.
Airich has problems against faster guys, but he doesn’t have to worry too much in this fight because Charr is painfully slow. Charr has decent power too, so this could be a competitive fight. I see it as a toss-up fight. If Airich isn’t too beaten down in terms of his confidence from his recent string of losses, he could win this fight.
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