Jermall Charlo: I’m taking Julian Williams’ head off

By Boxing News - 12/07/2016 - Comments

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By Eric Baldwin: IBF World junior middleweight champion Jermall Charlo (24-0, 18 KOs) plans on doing a job on unbeaten top challenger Julian “J-Rock” Williams (22-0-1, 14 KOs) in their fight this Saturday night on Showtime from the USC Galen Center in Los Angeles, California.

Charlo says he’s going to take Williams’ head off when he gets inside the ring with him on Saturday. The two big punchers have been jawing at each other for week’s head of their fight, and it’s reached a boiling point where they can’t wait to start throwing shots at one another.

The boxing public is kind of divided in their opinion of the outcome of the Charlo vs. Williams fight. Some believe that the 26-year-old Charlo will have too much boxing skills and power, whereas other fans believe that Williams will be able to outslug Charlo to win his IBF 154lb title.

Charlo and Williams are two of the best fighters in the 154lb division. Both have loads of talent and huge punching power. You could put right up at the top of the division along with a handful of guys like Jermell Charlo, Erislandy Lara, Demetrius Andrade, Saul Canelo Alvarez and Miguel Cotto.

“I’m taking a chance to fight this undefeated nobody, and I’m going to take his head off,” said Charlo about Williams.

This should be a real war on Saturday. Both guys are big punchers. Charlo might be the stronger of the two, but Williams isn’t far behind. Charlo has the slight advantage in experience from his fights against Austin Trout and Cornelius Bundrage. Williams is still inexperienced against top fighters in the division.

“When I win this fight I don’t want any excuses,” said Williams.

It wouldn’t be surprising news if Williams wins on Saturday. He’s got the power, size and the talent to get the job done. What Williams has going on his side in this fight is he’s got great stamina. He doesn’t fade late in his fights like we saw with Charlo in his last match against Austin Trout last May in Las Vegas.

Charlo was fortunate to win that fight by a 12 round unanimous decision, but it was still close. The fight was closer than the final judges’ scores. They scored it 116-1112, 115-113 and 116-112. I thought the fight could have been a draw, because Trout fought Charlo to a standstill. There was very little to separate the two 154lb fighters other than the power advantage that Charlo had going for him. It looked to me that Charlo might have gassed due to his struggles to make the weight for the fight.

Charlo looked huge during the fight. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had rehydrated to the mid-170s. That’s a lot of weight for fighter in the 154lb division. It may be that the 6-foot Charlo is going to need to make the move up to middleweight soon. Charlo is 26-years-old now, and he’s not going to be able to keep draining down to 154 forever. He’s going to need to move up at some point if only to make it easier on his body to get down in weight.

Shifting a great deal of water weight in the 24 hours before a fight has got to be very difficult for Charlo or anyone. The bad part about Charlo moving up in weight is he’ have to deal with Gennady “GGG” Golovkin if he wanted to win a world title. That’s going to be a tough fight for Charlo, but if he delays the match for a year, he might have a chance of catching Golovkin while he’s on the downside of his career.

As far as fight strategy goes, Williams will very likely jump on Charlo from the beginning of the fight as Trout did, and look to wear him down slowly by forcing him to fight hard for three minutes of every round. Charlo is dangerous in the first seven rounds of the fight, so Williams is going to need to make sure he has his guard up at all times. He can’t afford to let Charlo land his big shots in this fight if he plans on winning.

Charlo has the kind of power that will enable him to build a big lead early in the fight and then cruise the rest of the way if Williams fights in a foolish manner. That wouldn’t be a good idea. Charlo is good at making his opponents pay for their mistakes they make in the ring. Williams is more of a brutal puncher than he is a boxer, so it’s very likely that he’s going to be trying to get Charlo out of there as fast as possible on Saturday night rather than dragging the fight out over rounds. This means that the boxing fans are going to be seeing a very good fight most likely.

Williams recently beat Lucian Leonel Cuello and Marcelo Matana. Both of those fights ended in knockout wins for Williams. Those were bad match-ups walking in the door, as Williams had far too much talent and punching power for either of them. The good news is that Williams will be facing better opposition if he beats Charlo on Saturday. He’ll need to, because he’ll be the IBF junior middleweight champion, and he won’t be able to continue to pick out obscure fighters with less than impressive records. The boxing world will finally get a chance to see how good Williams is after he starts facing good opposition on a frequent basis rather than the guys he’s been fighting during his six-year pro career.