The polarizing boxing bully Tyson Fury bursts the “Battle of Britain” against Anthony Joshua. And suddenly a certain Mahmoud Charr can dream of the world title again. The 37-year-old does not save before the duel with big comparisons and pithy announcements.
For the big challenge to Tyson Fury, Mahmoud Charr forgot all modesty and grabbed the top shelf. “Andy Warhol said,” said the Cologne professional boxer in the SID interview, “everyone has 15 minutes in their life to become world famous. Those are my 15 minutes. I’ll knock out Tyson Fury in four rounds.” On December 3rd, this daring prophecy is actually supposed to be fulfilled.
On Monday, Charr’s management announced the world title fight against Fury after the British heavyweight champion withdrew his offer to fight former champion Anthony Joshua in a social media video peppered with insults. According to the WBC version, the duel for the world championship belt should take place “in Manchester or Cardiff”, according to the Charr side.
Fury himself had previously praised the 37-year-old Charr on Instagram. “I’m happy to be up against a man who wants to fight and has the fire and desire,” Fury commented on a photo of himself and Charr: “He’s fought some of the best and is now rising again.”
December 3rd was actually reserved for an even bigger spectacle. For the unification fight for the honor of the undisputed champion between Fury and Alexander Usyk, world champion of the associations WBA, WBO and IBF. But the Ukrainian no longer wants to fight in 2022, so at the beginning of September Fury offered ex-champ Joshua, who had just been beaten by Usyk for the second time, a fight on this date.
On September 13, Joshua’s management spoke of an agreement – but contracts had obviously not been signed, which is why Fury Joshua set a deadline until Monday afternoon, which passed. Charr couldn’t understand this: “Either you’re a boxer and take on any challenge, or you’re an actor. Then go to Hollywood!”
But Fury’s behavior was also a mystery recently. Actually, the giant of 2.06 meters, unbeaten in 33 fights, didn’t want to get into the ring anymore. He had announced his retirement several times after beating Dillian Whyte in his last fight on April 23. Just as often, however, Fury quickly reappeared on the scene and fantasized about the conditions for a comeback.
For that he is now satisfied with the substitute opponent of the substitute opponent. Meanwhile, Charr’s performance, once a regular WBA champion, is difficult to assess. He will be a blatant outsider against world-class technician Fury, after his ring comeback he only fought two fights against Christopher Lovejoy (May 2021) and Nikola Milacic (May 2022), which he won after all.
The Fury fight is the next colorful chapter in the life’s work of Mahmoud Charr, who has had 33 wins and four losses in his career. In 2012 he lost his first World Championship fight against Vitali Klitschko, in 2015 he was shot in a kebab shop in Essen, and two years later he received two artificial hip joints. Just months later, he won the WBA title against Russian Alexander Ustinow before taking a break for more than three years.
Winning the title was a landmark moment for Charr – including a posse about his German passport, which Charr, as he later admitted, didn’t even have. In the meantime, however, he has it in his pocket and so the “Colossus of Cologne” with Syrian-Lebanese roots could really become the first German heavyweight champ since Max Schmeling. Even if that would be extremely difficult against a Tyson Fury.
