World Cup fight in the Oberhausen Arena

Charr wins heavyweight title of the WBA

The Cologne boxer Manuel Charr has won in Oberhausen the heavyweight title of the WBA against the favored Russian Alexander Ustinov.

The unanimous point victory, which was announced on Saturday evening (25.11.17) at 23.07 clock, was highly deserved in the end, even if he had not necessarily signed off at the beginning.

"Now Germany has its winter wonderland," Charr cheered immediately after the fight. "I experienced everything, a stomach shot, two new hip joints - but I got a bite, two weeks ago my eyebrow broke during training, but I did not tell my team that." The boxing association WBA has changed its regulations so that behind "Superchampion" Anthony Joshua can win yet another "Regular World Champion" - that's Manuel Charr now.

Behavioral beginning

Charr's overwhelming self-confidence had been barely noticeable at the beginning of the fight, and he was visibly impressed: by the great, perhaps even unique, opportunity, but also by his massive counterpart. The native Lebanese initially hid behind his raised double cover and let pass the blows of the Russians relatively passively.
After the first gong, however, he moved more and dared to himself one or the other counterattack - which he brought under the cheers of the boxing fans in Oberhausen also to the finish.

Charr arrived in combat from the second round

It was obvious to Ustinov that he had problems with a mobile opponent, and Charr got off to a better start as his fighting time increased. The fact that he had only six months ago used two artificial hip joints, was apparently no longer a handicap: The Cologne-Election, who had been seriously injured in 2015 by a shot from the gut, had arrived in the fight from the second round and moved increasingly at eye level.
"Move, move, do not stop!" These were always the commands from his ring corner. And Charr stuck to it, using the entire ring, but rarely allowed the left hand to follow the right hand. At the end of the fifth round, Charr also sprinkled an uppercut, seemed more self-confident, but sometimes dropped the cover quite a bit.

Ustinov is faltering

From the sixth round, the cutman in Charr's corner increasingly had to take care of his protégé's left eyebrow, but the bleeding was limited. For a long time it was not a really clean fight, it was held a lot, much stapled - but in the seventh round there was suddenly the decisive turn.
After a minute, Charr nailed a left to the head of Ustinov, who actually faltered - and this time the "Diamond Boy" did a great job as well. Charr now dominated the fight, hit after hit and showed with all his might that he wanted to write German boxing history that night.

Precipitation in the eighth round

From time to time, Charr picked up the pace - but at the end of the eighth round, he put perhaps the toughest, but certainly most important, goal in his career. A cracking left met Ustinov's head - and the Russian was hit hard on the boards. Ustinov wore it a gaping wound under his left eye, the gong saved him first, but in the ninth round Charr sat down again.
Although Ustinow showed impressive qualities, he became more and more immobile and was barely able to score a goal himself. Charr remained calm and controlled, obviously did not want to overdo, it was a boxerically outstanding performance at this stage.
Conditionally full at the height

Also conditional, the 33-year-old was fully on the top and offered the increasingly static becoming 2.02-meter Hünen no more hit area. Ustinov noticed at the latest from the tenth round, that he only salvaged in a K.o. Charr did not even let the Russians get close to an impact.

With unrestrained discipline and sovereignty brought the four-inch boxer smaller the fight home - and was rewarded by three clear judgments of the judges (115: 111, 116: 111, 115: 112) for his brilliant performance.