Because he owns three of the four most coveted world title belts, Oleksander Usyk is widely recognized as the best heavyweight boxer on the planet. Because he has his own championship resume and an irresistible charisma that attracts mainstream attention, Tyson Fury is widely recognized as the current face of heavyweight boxing. The sport’s longtime glamour division doesn’t have many household names beyond that: former champion Anthony Joshua, faded former champion Deontay Wilder, full-time (?) MMA star and part-time (?) boxer Francis Ngannou, and the living legend Mike Tyson — who is apparently moving forward with a comeback fight later this year — round out the small group of big names among boxing’s biggest punchers.

Then there’s Mahmoud Charr. On first glance, “Diamond Boy” (a.k.a. “The Arab King”) is one of those heavyweights hovering on the outskirts of fame. On second look, the 40-year-old Muslim fighter hasn’t lost a bout since 2015, he has a wild backstory that’s the stuff of documentaries, he has 1.5 million Instagram followers, and he’s a reigning champion — Charr holds the WBA “regular” title, a hard-to-define championship that ranks below Usyk’s WBA world title. And yet he’s still pretty much an unknown commodity to all but the most hardcore boxing fans.

Charr was born in Lebanon and is of Syrian descent. He later moved to Germany, and as a teenager was a Muay Thai national champion and European champion. After transitioning to boxing, he had a decorated amateur career before going pro at 21 years old and winning his first 21 fights. That unbeaten streak included a TKO over Danny Williams, the man who famously beat Mike Tyson in what was (for now) the second-to-last fight of Tyson’s career. (Charr began his boxing career under the name Manuel Charr, which his team believed would make him more marketable to European fans. In 2019, he went back to using his birth name.)

Charr worked his way into a WBC heavyweight title shot against Vitali Klitschko in 2012, which he lost via stoppage due to cuts. He rebounded with five straight wins before getting a shot at the WBC “international” title against Alexander Povetkin in 2014, which Charr lost via knockout. Charr alternated wins and losses over his next four fights — including a KO loss to Mairis Breidis in August 2015 which marks the last time he actually lost.

And that’s when the story gets really crazy.

A couple of weeks after the Breidis fight, Charr was ambushed outside a restaurant in Germany and shot four times in the stomach. The shooter turned out to be an aspiring boxer who Charr had trained in the past, who admitted after he was arrested that the attack was motivated by his hatred of Syrian people. The shooter later apologized and offered to compensate Charr for his injuries, but Charr rejected it. “I don’t want the family to be in debt for this kid’s mistake,” he was quoted by World Boxing News. “I have faith in God, who forgives us of our sins.”

Less than a year after the shooting, Charr returned to the ring. In June 2016, he defeated Andrei Mazanik by TKO. Then he won the WBA’s “international” title by beating Sefer Seferi by decision. After that fight, Charr learned that the chronic pelvic pain he’d been feeling was the result of a congenital hip condition, and in April 2017 he had double-hip replacement surgery. Seven months later, he was back: Charr added the WBA “regular” heavyweight championship to his collection with a decision win over Alexander Ustinov.

In 2018 (after vacating the WBA international title), Charr was scheduled to defend the WBA regular title against Fres Oquendo, but the fight was cancelled after Charr tested positive for banned substances. Charr’s suspension was ultimately lifted by the WBA after his team disputed the way in which his drug-test samples were handled — but the fight with Oquendo never got rescheduled.

In 2021, Charr was stripped of the WBA regular title due to inactivity; at the time, he hadn’t fought in over three years. He went to court and challenged the sanctioning body to get his belt back, winning his case in 2023 and getting restored as the WBA regular champion.

Charr is currently in the midst of another long stretch of inactivity; he hasn’t fought since a December 2022 knockout win over Nuri Seferi. There were a few bouts he had planned between then and now that fell through due to training injuries or stalled negotiations; most recently, Charr suffered a torn biceps in March 2024 that forced the cancellation of a title defense against Kubrat Pulev.

And so, on paper, Mahmoud Charr is 34-4 with 20 knockouts, and he’s been undefeated for the last nine years — and yet he is not ranked in the top 15 heavyweights by any of the other major sanctioning bodies, and no one seems to know when he’ll fight next.

When he does, barring decisions made outside the ring beyond his control, he should be entering the ring still introduced as a champion.