By Alexey Sukachev

Olimpiysky Sports Complex, Moscow, Russia - WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (45-2, 41KOs) stopped previously undefeated Manuel Charr (21-1, 11KOs) in four rounds. The ringside doctors refused to allow Charr to continue after he suffered a nasty cut in the fourth round.

Vitali started to unload punishment from the opening bell. WBC #7 Charr was moving laterally around the corners trying to show something. Klitschko, his hands down, was waiting for more action from the challenger but the German chose to move around rather than actually fight with the champion. Klitschko landed a couple of jabs to start inflicting damage to the challenger. All in all the first round was all Vitali's but he landed almost no power punches.

That all changed in the second. Vitali landed a hard right hand to the spleen to start the stanza. Charr tried to unleash a series of punches but none of them landed clean except for a left hand, which the Ukrainian took well. The German took his share of punishment but tried hard to land his shots. He ran after Vitali at the end of the stanza and hit him a couple of times. But he quickly ate several jabs and then he went down hard after being tagged by a right hand counter. Charr was lucky the bell was just seconds away.

In the third, Klitschko continued his methodical destruction of CHarr. His jab was painful, although Charr softened most of the damage with his tight guard. Nevertheless, the round was clearly in Vitali's favor despite some mild success from the challenger.

Early into the fourth, the WBC champion landed a crisp jab, and blood started raining down from the Charr's right eye. He tried his best and sensing the fight was just moments away from being stopped - he charged after the giant Ukrainian and even landed some punches. Then Italian referee Guido Cavalleri called a halt to the action and took Charr to the ringside physician, who then asked the referee to wave the fight off. Charr was very upset and started yelling and kicking the ropes. The official time of stoppage was 2:04 of the fourth.

By beating Charr, Vitali retained his World Boxing Council title for the ninth time in his second championship reign. Charr suffered his first career defeat.