BoxRec

The WBA announced Thursday that a purse bid has been scheduled for its heavyweight championship bout between title-holder Manuel Charr and mandatory challenger Fres Oquendo.

The bidding will take place Friday in Toronto, Canada. According to a press release issued by the WBA, Charr and Oquendo will receive 50 percent apiece of the winning purse bid.

Surprised they not put a $1m minimum bid. Or well it's not mentioned.

The never ending Fres Oquendo mandatory title fight scheduling. We have to schedule when we're gonna schedule the next scheduling...and then of course the fight is gonna fall through, and we'll be talking about Fres Oquendo vs a comebacking Lou Savarese or something for a few months before that falls through...and so on and so forth.

gilgamesh wrote: ↑08 Feb 2018, 13:48 The never ending Fres Oquendo mandatory title fight scheduling. We have to schedule when we're gonna schedule the next scheduling...and then of course the fight is gonna fall through, and we'll be talking about Fres Oquendo vs a comebacking Lou Savarese or something for a few months before that falls through...and so on and so forth.

Hopefully it ends here.

Is there a minimum bid?

I don't see this fight getting much interest from promoters.
Fres may not want to fight with the offer he's going to get

lets hope it gets made and fought as soon as possible. none of us want oquendo in a title shot but its gonna happen so lets hope this goes down swimmingly

Ruthless-RKO wrote: ↑08 Feb 2018, 13:47 Surprised they not put a $1m minimum bid. Or well it's not mentioned.

I think the WBA have learned from the Oquendo / Briggs purse bids when they got nowhere near the 1mln minimum but the fight got made anyway...

This whole situation makes me wonder if we made a gofundme account and all donated a small sum we could promote this fight.

I don't know why we would want to because we would all lose our investment but something to think about.

This bid will be so low Stacey Goodson will come out of retirement to bid on it.

Ruthless-RKO wrote: ↑08 Feb 2018, 13:47 Surprised they not put a $1m minimum bid. Or well it's not mentioned.

The WBA wouldn't want a minimum bid, or anything else that could put-up barriers to the fight coming off. The court-ordered Oquendo mandatory has been an anchor around their neck for years. It makes it impossible for the WBA to arrange any good, lucrative heavyweight title fights involving non-Oquendo combatants. If I were the WBA, I'd be willing to waive the sanctioning fee if it could help get this blasted, cursed, god-forsaken mandatory out of the way.

A few weeks back I actually forgot about Charr and his belt (someone kindly reminded me). I think most but the hard core fans have too.
This fight commands a co-main event at most. At least then they might get some TV interest and we may be able to actually watch it- assuming the co main event is decent.

How does someone like Oquendo, who is probably in his mid 40s and hasn't fought in 4 years ( a defeat) manage to stay relevant in the title picture?

And yes, Charr's title, something called the WBA "regular" heavyweight championship, isn't very meaningful.

I don't hear his name mentioned when there's talk of eventually unifying the heavyweight crown, so his belt really can't be very coveted. Or legit.

But why is Oquendo even a mandatory for this paper mache title?

He never fights, he lost his last "title shot" against Chagaev, and that was years ago. He was even busted post fight for drugs.

And he's damn old.

So how come Fast Fres remains somebody's idea of a mandatory challenger despite all the baggage?

oquendo was apparently owed a wba belt rematch wth chagaev but that wasnt honoured so he sued the wba and won and has a shot ordered for the last few years

I was aware he sued Chagaev's promoters to get the rematch he was contractually owed.

But what seems so wrong is that the WBA can rank Oquendo as the #2 contender despite not having fought in four years and not having a meaningful victory in this decade.

It just seems absurd.

And when (if) this bout take place, it will undoubtedly be very anticlimactic.

Charr will probably stop Oquendo. Not because he's such a terrific fighter. He isn't.

But Oquendo has been rusting for years and at 44 it's unlikely he can immediately return to boxing and come out a winner in a high profile bout.

The Fres Oquendo of 10 years ago would probably cruise to victory. The Oquendo of 2018 will end up wondering if it was worth the long wait.

SenorPipino wrote: ↑09 Feb 2018, 01:16 But what seems so wrong is that the WBA can rank Oquendo as the #2 contender despite not having fought in four years and not having a meaningful victory in this decade.

They just tend to keep him stuck at #2. Something they choose to do. I think if they dropped him from the ranks, they'd forget about him.

And when (if) this bout take place, it will undoubtedly be very anticlimactic.

It SHOULD take place in Germany. Charr has got somewhat of a decent following there so why not. Oquendo probably would like it in the States.

But Oquendo has been rusting for years and at 44 it's unlikely he can immediately return to boxing and come out a winner in a high profile bout.

I saw him at the Briggs presser. He's in the same shape he was in when was relevant.

The Fres Oquendo of 10 years ago would probably cruise to victory. The Oquendo of 2018 will end up wondering if it was worth the long wait.

10 Years ago was 2008. Oquendo was crap back then. He was most relevant in 2004.. Even then he was crap.

It's no wonder boxing is a minority sport. What a joke.

It’s incredibly absurd that the WBA has sanctioned a fighter about to turn 45 years of age, without having scored a victory for almost four years, to compete for one of their championship belts.

I understand the WBA’s obligations to grant Oquendo this title opportunity, due to the lawsuit the Puerto Rican filed in 2014, but there should have been an expiry date stipulated for his guaranteed title shot, because this situation is an embarrassment to the sport.

I’m not blaming Oquendo, because this is purely the WBA’s fault! FFS!

I have stopped paying attention to WBA titles. I can't be arsed to keep track on who the real champ is in their weird two champs nonsense. I don't consider anyone who has the WBA belt to be any kind of champion anymore.

The purse bid took place earlier today and BS.com was notified that Oquendo's handlers walked away with the victory. They bid $600,000 to secure the rights to the fight - while Charr's team bid $101,000.

Both parties were duly notified, the monetary percentage will be an even 50% split for each fighter.

Team Charr bid $100k!! Fück that!

Supposedly a world title fight were each would have got $50k each!!

Just goes to show, the thread 'boxers pay' in the British section.. this proves. It's just depends on your backing, financial pull and simply popularity..

Ruthless-RKO wrote: ↑09 Feb 2018, 15:33 Team Charr bid $100k!! Fück that!

Supposedly a world title fight were each would have got $50k each!!

Just goes to show, the thread 'boxers pay' in the British section.. this proves. It's just depends on your backing, financial pull and simply popularity..

Even at 50K each they'd still be overpaid. This isn't a World Title fight. It's a fight between 2 guys who aren't in the Top 30. The fact that they'll be getting a 6 figure payday out of this is remarkable frankly.

Since Oquendo's team won the purse bid I assume the fight will take place in America?

I honestly don't even see how this event makes enough money to pay the fighters. I'm sure Russians would come out in support of Charr a hell of a lot more than Americans will come out in support of Oquendo. Hell nobody's seen Oquendo fight on U.S. Television in like 10 years

gilgamesh wrote: ↑09 Feb 2018, 15:38

Ruthless-RKO wrote: ↑09 Feb 2018, 15:33 Team Charr bid $100k!! Fück that!

Supposedly a world title fight were each would have got $50k each!!

Just goes to show, the thread 'boxers pay' in the British section.. this proves. It's just depends on your backing, financial pull and simply popularity..

Even at 50K each they'd still be overpaid. This isn't a World Title fight. It's a fight between 2 guys who aren't in the Top 30. The fact that they'll be getting a 6 figure payday out of this is remarkable frankly.

Since Oquendo's team won the purse bid I assume the fight will take place in America?

I honestly don't even see how this event makes enough money to pay the fighters. I'm sure Russians would come out in support of Charr a hell of a lot more than Americans will come out in support of Oquendo. Hell nobody's seen Oquendo fight on U.S. Television in like 10 years

Likely for May 4 in Chicago. So a Friday night.

"Of course, we would have loved to stage the fight in Germany but we are also happy to travel to Chicago," said Charr's promoter Bernd Trendelkamp.

"We could have placed a bid of one million, two million or even ten million dollars. But to be honest, we had not expected anybody from Team Oquendo to show up at the purse bid. The WBA had decided that there was no minimum for the bids so we thought we can get the fight cheap. We always knew that there was a risk we would lose the bid but we had planned to bring Manuel to the States anyways. Now we don't have to pay for it and promote ourselves so we are very happy with the outcome."

Oquendo wins this on points with Charr being knocked down in the middle rounds. Oquendo can box and even at 44 I think he will have too much for Charr. Plus Oquendo is one of the good guys and Charr is a thug.

Fight to be staged in Puerto Rico, as a post-hurricane celebration?