WBA champion in recess Mahmoud Charr (32-4, 18 KOs) steamrolled over American Christopher Lovejoy (19-1, 19 KOs) by a machine-like 2nd round knockout on Saturday night at the Sportstudio Baaden in Cologne, Germany.
Charr looked fast and powerful in throwing combinations to move Lovejoy down in the second round.
The 36-year-old Charr was coming off a long 3 1/2-year-old layoff, but he looked outstanding in making short work of the 307-lb Lovejoy in the second round with a mini-flurry of heavy power shots.
During the storm of shots from Charr, Lovejoy collapsed in his corner and stayed down for the full 10-count by referee Juergen Langos. The time of the stoppage was at 1:09 of round 2.
After the fight was waved off by the referee, Charr attempted to do a cartwheel in front of the crowd and fell down.
It would have been interesting if Lovejoy had at least tried to make it back to his feet to resume fighting, but he looked pretty hurt and showed no signs of getting back to his feet to give it a go.
The way that Lovejoy had been fighting, it probably wouldn’t matter if he had gotten back to his feet. He wasn’t throwing any punches and was just giving ground the entire fight.
Charr dominated every second of the fight, chasing Lovejoy around the ring, hitting him with shots, and having an easy time of it. Although the 306-pound Lovejoy had a huge size advantage over the 245lb Charr, he fought like the smaller guy due to his reluctance to let his hands go. It was odd.
Lovejoy had looked like a world-beater in the workout clips that had been posted of him, but tonight he looked like was paralyzed with fear being inside the ring with Charr.
One could tell that the 37-year-old Lovejoy was entirely over-matched by Charr, and he didn’t know how to deal with the huge step up in class from the pedestrian-level opposition he’d been fed during his five-year professional career.
Before tonight, Lovejoy had fought exclusively fighters with losing records to compile his 19-0 record, and he in no way was prepared for what he was going to deal with against Charr.
The big German-based Charr will now likely be littered with offers from different heavyweight contenders for a fight. If Charr is willing to face a decent contender, he’ll have that option.
Charr needs to stay busy with his career and grab back his WBA ‘regular’ title from Trevor Bryan. That’s a winnable fight for Charr if performs like he did tonight.