Mahmoud Charr will be coming off a two-year layoff to defend his WBA ‘regular’ heavyweight title this Saturday, December 7th, against #7 ranked contender Kubrat Pulev in Sofia. Charr-Pulev is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. GMT. The event will be shown live on DAZN at 6:00 p.m. GMT.
If Pulev looks as bad as he did in his 12-round split decision loss to Derek Chisora on July 9, 2022, Charr has a great chance of winning. Pulev looked very slow, and nothing like the fighter that had fought then IBF and WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in 2014 or the one that stopped Tony Thompson in 2013. Pulev was a pretty good contender during his prime, but he’s gotten old and lost a lot of his hand speed.
Pulev has won his last two fights, beating Ihor Shevadzutskyi and Andrzej Wawrzyk. Those aren’t world-class contenders, though.
In Charr’s last fight two years ago, he knocked our journeyman Nuri Seferi in the second round on December 21, 2022. The other guys, Charr, have beaten the same type of non-relevant second-tier heavyweights.
Charr, 40, has won his last six fights since being stopped in the fifth round by Mairis Briedis on August 22nd, 2015. Interestingly, Charr has fought only six times in the last nine years since the loss to Briedis, and yet he holds the WBA ‘regular’ title. I can only assume that the money he was getting paid was so good that he didn’t feel the need to be more active.
It’s hard to believe that Charr will defend the WBA ‘regular’ heavyweight title in this fight with Pulev because he looks nothing like a world champion. However, the WBA’s regular belts are their sub-championships, and they’re usually for guys who don’t possess the talent to hold the main belt. Gervonta Davis is the exception at lightweight.
Pulev, 43, has been the more active fighter of the two, but that may not help against Charr if he’s gotten anything left from the last time he fought. Neither looked impressive in their last few fights, but Charr wasn’t quite as bad.
Saturday’s Charr vs. Pulev fight will be shown live on DAZN.
Charr vs. Pulev fight card
- Mahmoud Charr vs. Kubrat Pulev; Heavyweight
- Gleb Bakshi vs. Juan Manuel Taborda; Middleweight
- Petar Draganov vs. Juan Antonio Llanes; Super welterweight
- Mohammed Bekdash vs. Juan Rodolfo Juarez; Cruiserweight
- Pietro Loriga vs. Marko Dmitrovic; Super lightweight
- Zdravko Popov vs. Rafael Amarillas Ortiz; Middleweight
- Paris Stavropoulos vs. Atilla Kayabasi; Lightweight
- Nikolay Chavdarov vs. Kalin Simeonov; Middleweight