Daniel Dubois beat Trevor Bryan to win the WBA Regular Heavyweight title and guarantee himself a shot at ‘Super Champion’, Oleksandr Usyk.
That took place in Poland this past weekend, and the 25-year-old Brit was stopped in the ninth round for the Ukrainian to retain. Dubois’ side is currently preparing an appeal to overturn the result due to a shot they believe was incorrectly called low – although many in the sport believe it’s ill-fated.
With the two top dogs in the sanctioning body having now faced off, the ‘Regular’ belt should be deemed void and, as many fans believed it to be already, irrelevant.
That is not the case. Five days on from the fight, the WBA has announced that, following an ongoing legal battle, Mahmoud (formerly Manuel) Charr is their Regular Champion just under Usyk.
In a statement, the sanctioning body said the 34-4 heavyweight had been campaigning for it since 2021.
“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.
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.
Charr lost his status as champion in recess in December 2021, after not having fought in the scheduled time and after the impossibility of agreeing a fight with Trevor Bryan. After two years and a judicial process in between, the WBA has decided to reinstate the regular champion status to the boxer.
After a thorough study by the WBA on the best way to execute this move, the WBA set two key conditions. First, Charr must face Jarrell Miller, 5th rated boxer of the division before October 14. And second, the winner of this matchup must face the next available contender, which will be determined by the body.”
Charr has competed three times since 2017. He knocked out Christopher Lovejoy in May of 2021 and stopped both Nikola Milacic and Nuri Seferi a year later. None of these fighters are ranked in the WBA’s top 15.
The order to face Jarrell Miller – best known for his failed doping tests in the lead-up to a lucrative Anthony Joshua fight – is also a strange one, given there are four contenders before him, including ‘AJ.’
Miller has fought three times since 2018, again against no current top ranked WBA heavyweights.
The WBA concluded its statement by deeming the decision in the best interests of the sport.