Weigh-in: Manuel Charr 242.5, Kevin Johnson 244.5

By Boxing News - 04/11/2014 - Comments

Johnson_Charr(Photo: Babak Shah Photography) By Allan Fox: #6 WBC heavyweight contender Manuel Charr (25-1, 15 KO’s) weighed in today for his 10 round fight on Saturday night against high level journeyman Kevin Johnson (29-5-1, 14 KO’s) at the Telekom Dome, Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. Charr weighed in at 242.5lbs. This is a fight that Charr needs to keep moving forward to an eventual title shot against whoever emerges as the new WBC heavyweight champion.

It’s going to take Charr a while for him to get a title shot because he’s going to have to fight his way into a mandatory title shot. He doesn’t have a recognizable name to American or Canadian boxing fans, so the chances of him getting picked out for an optional title defense by the WBC champion are about zero.

Johnson weighed in at 244.5lbs. Johnson has had bad luck recently in losing to Dereck Chisora, Christian Hammer and Tyson Fury. He’s currently lost 3 out of his last 4 fights, and he can’t afford to lose any more fights if he wants to remain a viable opponent for the top fighters. Johnson has the talent to be a good fighter, but he fights like someone who doesn’t have the conditioning to work hard for more than 30 seconds of every round.

Earlier in his career he was able to fight hard for a full three minutes of every round, but not anymore. Johnson now is totally stationary and his work rate is almost nonexistent. That’s obviously why he was selected by Chisora and Fury to fight. If Johnson was capable of throwing a lot of punches and staying busy for three minutes of every round, he’s be avoided because he would be beating most of the heavyweights.

Charr was given an undeserved title shot against former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in 2012, but he was sliced to ribbons by Vitali’s big shots and stopped in the 4th round. Charr was selected for the fight due to him being well known in his home country of Germany only, but he didn’t fight well at all in that one-sided fight.

Charr now appears to be trying the same route as he did before by facing journeyman level opposition in hopes of getting another title shot. It’ll be interesting to see if the World Boxing Council eventually makes Charr fight one of the good heavyweight contenders to earn a mandatory spot or if they’ll simply install him automatically as the No.1 contender at some point without forcing him to work for the spot.



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