Manuel Charr vs. Trevor Bryan purse bid scheduled for March

By Boxing News - 02/20/2020 - Comments

By Sean Jones: A purse bid has been scheduled by the WBA for heavyweight champion Manuel Charr and interim WBA champion Trevor Bryan for March in Panama. According to Dan Rafael, the minimum bid for the Charr-Bryan purse bid is $1 million.

Charr and Bryan were supposed to have fought a long time ago, but nothing has come of it. The WBA needs to make sure these two face each other in 2020 rather than let another year pass by without their ‘regular’ heavyweight title being defended.

It might be a better idea or the WBA to eliminate their ‘regular’ title entirely, and just have one champion per division instead of 2. They have the WBA ‘regular’ and the WBA ‘Super World’ titles in each weight class.

The 35-year-old ‘Diamond Boy’ Charr (31-4, 17 KOs) has been sitting inactive for the last 2 years since he captured the vacant World Boxing Association ‘regular’ heavyweight title in defeating the then 41-year-old Alexander Ustinov by a 12 round unanimous decision on November 25, 2017, in Oberhausen, Germany.

Charr surprisingly looked good in that fight in dropping the big 6’7 1/2″ Ustinov in the 8th round and dominating him the rest of the way to get the win.

The two years that Charr has been out of the ring since the victory over Ustinov obviously hasn’t done anything for his skills, and he’s likely to be incredibly rusty when he eventually defends his WBA title.

Bryan (20-0, 14 KOs) won the interim WBA heavyweight title a year and a half ago in stopping BJ Flores in the 4th round in August 2018.

What’s unclear the WBA has allowed Charr to sit on his title for 2 years without defending it. You would think they would have stripped Charr a long time ago due to him not defending it for 2 years. If the WBA had Emeritus tag they could give to inactive champions, Charr would be perfect for that.

Before Charr was given the opportunity to fight for the vacant WBA ‘regular’ heavyweight title in 2017 against Ustinov, his career was seen as going nowhere. Charr had been beaten by Mairis Briedis, Johann Duhaupas, Alexander Povetkin and Vitali Klitschko. His loss to Briedis, a cruiserweight, was especially bad, as he was wiped out in five rounds in 2015.

The WBA still has 46-year-old Fres Oquendo ranked #15 with their organization despite the fact that he hasn’t fought since losing a 12 round majority decision in July 2014. It’ll be six years in July since Oquendo last fought, and yet he’s still ranked at #15 with the WBA.