Mahmoud Charr has returned to his previous secondary title status.
A legal settlement between parties has forced the WBA to abandon its own title reduction campaign and reinstate Charr as its ‘Regular’ heavyweight titlist. The ruling was made less than a week after the sanctioning body eliminated the title following Daniel Dubois’ ninth-round knockout loss to unified WBA ‘Super’/IBF/WBO titlist Oleksandr Usyk (22-0, 14KOs) on August 26 in Wroclaw, Poland.
“As part of a court settlement, the World Boxing Association (WBA) Championships Committee has reinstated Mahmoud Charr as regular champion of the organization’s heavyweight division,” the WBA explained in a ruling. “The agreement reached, which puts an end to a long dispute brought by the boxer and his team, will allow the WBA to close this chapter, settling a dispute that has been going on for more than a year.
“After the fight in which Oleksandr Usyk defeated Daniel Dubois, the Ukrainian had remained as the only heavyweight champion. However, the organization is forced to make the decision to reinstate Charr as regular champion in order to continue with the normal operation of the body.”
According to the ruling, the WBA ‘Regualr’ title is not only back in play but will now be at stake for two separate mandatory title defenses. Charr (34-4, 20KOs) was ordered to next face Brooklyn’s Jarrell Miller—an unbeaten fringe contender and multi-time drug testing offender—by no later than October 14. The winner of that bout will then be required to next face the mandatory challenger as named by the WBA by that time.
Charr previously held the WBA ‘Regular’ title dating back to a November 2017 points win over Alexander Ustinov. He never successfully defended the belt over a period of more than three years due to a variety of reasons—a positive drug test that was successfully challenged through a legal loophole; the pandemic; and failure to secure a travel visa in time to face then-unbeaten interim titlist Trevor Bryan in 2021 and again one year later after he was already downgraded to ‘Champion In Recess.’
The development served as part of the basis for an ongoing lawsuit filed in August 2021 by Charr against Don King Productions, Epic Sports, the WBA as whole and its president Gilberto Jesus Mendoza named individually in the conspiracy complaint. The WBA was granted a motion to dismiss earlier this March, but the ruling was successfully challenged by Charr.
The heart of the lawsuit stems from Charr’s claim that King prevented the Germany-based heavyweight from proceeding with an ordered title consolidation bout with Bryan. The two were due to fight on January 30, 2021 in Hollywood, Florida and again in a rescheduled bout for last January 30 in Warren, Ohio.
Both attempts fell through, with Charr stripped of his secondary version of the WBA heavyweight title as a result of the fallout. Charr was due to make $1,500,000 for the fight in 2021, per the terms of a purse bid won by Don King Productions and which he now seeks to recover “in addition to any other relief the court seems proper.”
Charr never defended his version of the heavyweight title due to a number of circumstances, the extent of which was the result of two years’ worth of delays surrounding his ordered fight with Bryan who held an interim title at the time. The most extreme incident took place in the weeks and days leading to his canceled January 2021 fight with Bryan. Charr was denied due to a failure to secure a travel visa to the U.S. from his adopted Germany homeland, prompting the WBA to declare the title vacant and demote the Syrian heavyweight to ‘Champion in Recess.’
Bryan was due to face Charr earlier last year, only for history to repeat itself and Charr ultimately removed from the mix. Bryan instead faced unbeaten Jonathan Guidry, whom he outpointed in a strangely scored split decision this past January before losing the title to England’s Dubois via fourth-round knockout on June 11 in Miami.
Charr has fought three times since he was originally stripped of the WBA title. All have taken place in Germany and ended in early knockout victories for the 38-year-old Syrian heavyweight, who now lives in Dubai.
Usyk will remain unaffected by the forced ruling, though it means the WBA is once again forced to recognize two separate heavyweight titlists just five days after finally consolidating the belts.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for krikya360.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox