By Tim Fletcher: Unbeaten #2 IBF, #1 WBC junior middleweight contender Jermell Charlo (26-0, 11 KOs) will be putting his unbeaten record on the line this Saturday night in a 10 round fight against 39-year-old former WBA junior middleweight champion Joachim Alcine (35-7-2, 21 KOs) on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC Sports net from the NRG Arena, in Houston, Texas.

Charlo is in position to fight for the WBC junior middleweight title once the World Boxing Council makes up their mind what they’re going to do with the current WBC 154lb champion Floyd Mayweather Jr., who supposedly retired from the sport after his recent win over Andre Berto. However, Mayweather still hasn’t formally given up any of his titles, so the WBC doesn’t want to make a move right now until they know for sure.

The sanctioning fees they get from Mayweather obviously makes it worthwhile for them to keep him the WBC title until they find out for sure.

The 25-year-old Jermell Charlo is seen as the lighter punching brother of IBF junior middleweight champion Jermall Charlo. Jermell does a lot of the same things that Jarmall can do in the ring, but he just doesn’t have his big punching power, and that makes his fights a lot more difficult.

Jermell arguably lost his last fight against Vanes Martirosyan last March at the Palm Springs Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Charlo was given a 10 round unanimous decision win over Martirosyan, but a lot of boxing fans thought that Charlo lost that fight. I also thought that Martirosyan did enough to get the win, because he landed the harder shots all throughout the fight, and he was the one pushing the action in the second half.

Charlo has a lot of hype behind him due to his skills, and because of how good his brother Jermall is.

Other than his controversial win over Martirosyan, Charlo has looked good in his other recent fights in beating Mario Alberto Lozano, Charlie Ota, Gabriel Rosado and Jose Angel Rodriguez.
Alcine’s career has kind of tanked since he lost his WBA World junior middleweight title to Daniel Santos in July 2008 in losing by a 6th round knockout. Since that fight, Alcine has had success and a lot of failures.

Alcine beat David Lemieux by a controversial 12 round decision in 2011 in a fight that a lot of people thought Lemieux had won. However, Alcine was beaten by Alfredo Angulo, Matthew Macklin, Brian Rose, Julian Williams, Omar Chavez and Francisco Santana. In his last three fights, Alcine beat Lawrence Hughes and Jovan Ramirez, and was held to a 10 round draw against Delvin Rodriguez.

Charlo should have no problems beating Alcine in this fight. He’s a lot younger than him, faster and has equal punching power. As long as Charlo doesn’t fight passively like he did against Martirosyan, he should be okay on Saturday night. Alcine is more like a journeyman at this point in his career than a real threat to beating Charlo. But you never know though, because Charlo really looked bad against Martirosyan. If he doesn’t bring his A-game for this fight, then it’s possible that he could lose.

Also on the card is junior middleweight Tony Harrison facing Cecil McCalla in a 10 round fight.