Despite the Heavyweight division being much maligned by both the fans of the actual sport and those that still think Mike Tyson is the champion (trust me there is some of those folk still out there) it's genuinely accepted that the Ukrainian Klitschko Brothers are the #1 and #2 at the weight. This weekend sees the older of the Klitschko's, Vitali (44-2, 40) defending his WBC Heavyweight title against unbeaten challenger Manuel Charr (21-0, 11) in Moscow.
The challenger, significantly the younger man at "just" 27 years old, is widely seen to be a sacrificial lamb as the 41 year old Vitali looks to top off his long and illustrious career with yet another win, however does the man known as "The Diamond Boy" have a chance of a giant upset as age catches up with the champion?
Born in Syria though now based in Germany Charr has been quietly making his name since turning professional in 2005. Though without any spectacular wins to date he has been scoring what could be described "decent" wins over the likes of Gbenga Oloukun (at the time 16-0, 10), Owen Beck (a former world title challenger), Danny Williams (another former title challenger) and Taras Bidenko (who gave the gigantic Nikolay Valuev a competitive bout). Though admittedly the likes of Williams and Beck were several years removed from their best.
Although Charr is unbeaten he hasn't had been fighting against any fellow contenders instead picking off fighters who are either journeymen or noticeably beyond their best years. One of those journeymen, American Zack Page, gave Charr all he could handle at the end of 2010 and Charr should feel fortunate to have come away from that bout with a majority decision as he was pushed close to his first professional loss. Whilst the stoppage of British veteran Danny Williams was questionable at best.
At around 6'3" Charr will be dwarfed in the ring and at around 240-250lbs he's not a fighter in great shape often looking rather doughy. His work rate is far from spectacular and his defense is sloppy at best with a lot of his own attacking work looking more like slaps than real punches however he's a fighter who appears to be confident having already said he will "destroy" Vitali Klitschko and David Haye. In fact Charr has to take credit for having serious balls having walked up to David Haye and challenged him at the press conference after Haye had defeated Dereck Chisora. Testicular fortitude aside Charr appears to have little else going for him.
At 41 years old Vitali Klitschko is significantly older than his challenger and with 46 professional bouts on his record he also has much more experience. However this experience has come at a price and through his illustrious career he has picked up various injuries including a torn rotator cuff, torn ligaments and a badly damaged knee (which forced an early retirement from the sport in 2005 before making a comeback several years later).
Klitschko's professional career started way back in 1996 and has seen him becoming a 3-time champion at Heavyweight having held the WBO title (1999-2000) and the WBC title (2004-2005, 2008-) and scoring notable victories over Herbie Hide, Larry Donald, Corrie Sanders, Samuel Peter, Juan Carlos Gomez, Shannon Briggs, Odlanier Solis, Chris Arreola, T omasz Adamek and most recently Dereck Chisora. However he has had set backs including not only his short lived retirement but also losses to Chris Byrd (due to the aforementioned torn rotator cuff) and Lennox Lewis (due to serious cuts). As well as the set backs he hasn't really been accepted by certain quarters of the boxing community who have failed to accept him as a high quality operator in the ring.
Standing at a lofty 6'7" and coming in to the ring in the region of 240-250 Klitschko has an excellent build which is athletic and rangy. It's the range and size of Klitschko that has caused so many opponents real issues in the past with his busy and heavy jab controlling the range and pace of a fight. Not only is Klitschko awkward due to his reach but also his unorthodox style which sees him throwing punches from unusual angles whilst avoid shots with upper body movements.
Charr is the clear under-dog (priced as high as 24/1 by one Sportsbook) and with good reason. Not only is he taking a massive step up to face Klitschko but he has shown nothing that Klitschko will fear. He's not shown to be capable of doing anything outstanding and he's looked to just be very average in an era of poor Heavyweight challengers. For Charr to win he would quite frankly need a miracle.
For Klitschko (best priced at 1/33) this looks like a routine title defense against a poor challenger. In fact without being facetious I honestly feel Klitschko could win this with an arm tied behind his back. Expect to see the Ukrainian's jab breaking not only the defense of the challenger (with an alarming regularity) but also his will before Charr gets stopped in the latter half of the bout (if he makes it that far). Don't be surprised however to see Charr starting very brightly....until he gets hit and goes progressively into his shell before taking a beating and wilting.
Prediction: Klitschko by T/KO 8 (priced at around 9/1)
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