By Dan Ambrose: The WBC has determined that #4 WBC Hugo Centeno Jr. (26-1, 14 KOs) and #1 WBC Jermall Charlo (26-0, 20 KOs) must face each other for the interim WBC middleweight title while they wait for the smoke to clear from the rematch between WBC 160 lb. champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin and Saul Canelo Alvarez for another 4 more months on May 5.
There’s still no date for when Charlo and Centeno Jr. needs to face each other, but that’s not too important. The winner of the Centeno Jr. vs. Charlo match isn’t going to get a shot against the Canelo-GGG winner right away, because those 2 guys don’t face each other in a rematch until May 5.
The 26-year-old Centeno Jr. says he’s excited about fighting former IBF junior middleweight champion Charlo, but he might not think the same thing once he gets inside the ring with him and finds out what he’s dealing with. Charlo has been obliterating his opponents recently, and he and his twice brother Jermell Charlo are looking like they’re hitting their prime now.
Centeno Jr. hasn’t been looking nearly as good in his fights. He did defeated Immanuel Aleem by a 3rd round knockout on August 25 last year, but that fighter is nowhere near as good as Charlo.
WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman said this about Charlo and Centeno Jr. fighting for the WBC interim middleweight title:
”Middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin has been mandate to fight a rematch with Canelo Alvarez, and negotiations are taking place. In order to allow this rematch, the WBC ordered mandatory challenger Jermall Charlo to fight Hugo Centeno for the WBC middleweight interim championship.”
Centeno is going to need to go after Charlo immediately and hope that he can knock him out with one of his big left hooks if he hopes to pull off the upset. Charlo isn’t the type of fighter that you want to let hang around for long. Charlo will be looking to KO Centeno Jr. as far as possible like he did in his last fight in stoping Jorge Sebastian Heiland in the 4th round. In his fight before that, Charlo knocked out Julian ‘J-Rock’ Williams in the 5th round in December 2016. Williams would be a lot of problems for Centeno Jr.
”Just waiting for the fight to actually be made,” said Centeno Jr. to RingTV.com. “But I want it! He’s a great fighter. He’s never faced someone like me. That I’m very versatile, I bring a lot of different fighting abilities to the table. Orthodox, southpaw, brawl, box. I can do it all,” said Centeno Jr.
Centeno Jr. didn’t comment on what happened with his fight against Maciej Sulecki in June of 2016. Centeno Jr. was stopped in the 10th round of that fight by Sulecki. The fight wasn’t even competitive. It was just a mismatch from start to finish. Sulecki is a pretty good fighter, but I wouldn’t favor him to beat Charlo or his brother Jermell.
Centeno has good power, so he’ll have at least a puncher’s chance against Charlo if nothing else. If Centeno Jr. doesn’t KO Charlo quickly in this fight, he’s probably going to get knocked out.