Two-time world heavyweight title challenger Kubrat Pulev (32-3, 14 KOs) finally captured his first major title with a 12-round unanimous decision win over WBA ‘regular’ champion Mahmoud Charr (34-5, 20 KOs) on Saturday night at the Arena Sophia in Sofia, Bulgaria.
The 43-year-old Pulev showed off his excellent amateur pedigree, using his jab and wide clubbing punches to bludgeon the ring-rusty Charr in every round of the fight. It was pure domination from the 2008 Olympian Pulev, who that he still has his skills intact.
Charr took a lot of punishment in this fight and looked beaten up around the face by the tenth round. He looked like he’d been through a major ordeal taking all the heavy shots from Pulev, as well as beautiful jabs. Pulev, 6’5″, has always had an outstanding jab, and he still has it. He was using that like a power shot tonight, nailing Charr repeatedly.
The scores
– 117-111
– 117-111
– 116-112
Charr made the mistake of using Pulev as his first opponent coming off a two-year layoff, and in hindsight, he should have opted for an easier one.
It’ll be interesting to see if Pulev can transmute his WBA ‘regular’ heavyweight title into a big payday fighting the winner of the Tyson Fury vs. Oleksander Usyk rematch. That would be a dream come true because the money would be nice for Pulev. A match against Jake Paul would be excellent as well.
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