By Dan Ambrose: Undefeated former IBF junior middleweight champion Jermall Charlo (25-0, 19 KOs) will be fighting Jorge Heiland on the undercard of Adrien Broner vs. Mikey Garcia on July 29, according to RingTV.com. It’s not official yet that Charlo and Heiland will be on the card, but it’s expected to be announced soon. The fight card will be televised by Showtime Championship Boxing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
This will be a great addition to the Broner-Garcia card, as Charlo and Heiland will be letting their hands go, and we could see a knockout in this fight. Both guys like to slug it out. Charlo looks hard to beat at this time. It might be too tough of a task for the 30-year-old Heiland to deal with him. The Argentinian Heiland’s toughest opponents during his 10-year pro career was Matthew Macklin and Mateo Damian Vernon. Heiland stopped Macklin in the 10th round in 2014. However, Heiland was beaten by Veron by a 10 round majority decision in 2013.
To his credit, Heiland come back to avenge the loss to Veron by recently beating him by an 8th round knockout on April 21. Heiland was also beaten by Sebastian Zbik, Nilson Julio Tapia and Bili Facundo Godoy. Those are good fighters. There’s no shame that Heiland lost to them. Heiland did avenge the loss to Godoy by beating him by a 12th round knockout in November. But for the most part, Heiland hasn’t done a lot with his 10-year-old boxing career. He’s been fighting in Argentina most of the time against lesser opposition. Heiland does have good punching power, as we saw in his knockout win over Macklin, but he’s not particularly fast or highly skilled on defense.
#1 WBC Heiland (29-4-2, 16 KOs) and Charlo will be fighting in a World Boxing Council 160 middleweight title eliminator. The winner of the fight becomes the mandatory challenger to WBC champ Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. This will be the first time the 27-year-old Charlo has fought at middleweight during his 9-year pro career. It’s a tough draw for Jermall given his lack of experience against the bigger fighters. Heiland, 30, has some pop in his punches, and he’s not going to make it easy on Charlo.
The Argentinian fighter is a tough out. He’s not going to roll over for Charlo and let him get the ‘W’ on July 29. There’s too much at stake in this fight for the winner, especially if Saul Canelo Alvarez knocks off Golovkin in their fight on September 16. If Canelo beats Golovkin, he would be the new IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion. That means the winner of the Charlo-Heiland fight could be potentially facing Canelo in what would likely be on HBO PPV. I don’t know that Canelo would bother fighting Charlo if he emerges as the WBC mandatory, but there’s still a possibility Canelo would take the fight.
There would never be a better time for Canelo to take the fight. The best time for Canelo to fight a dangerous guy like Charlo or Daniel Jacobs would be right after he faces Golovkin, because he would be warmed up and ready to take on a dangerous fighter. If Canelo can beat Golovkin, he would stand a reasonable chance of beating Charlo or Jacobs. Personally, I don’t think Canelo can beat either of those guys or Golovkin. We may get the chance to find out this year if Canelo beats Golovkin and then takes the fight with Charlo-Heiland winner.
Charlo, 27, is coming off a career best win in stopping knockout artist Julian “J-Rock” Williams in the 5th round on December 10 last year. That was a great performance by Charlo, who fought incredibly well for a fighter that looked a little weight drained at the weigh-in. It was a surprise that Charlo was able to fight as well as he could, given how drained of water weight he was at the weigh-in the day before the fight. Charlo probably should have made the move up in weight to middleweight a year or two ago. He would have been able to mix it up with Gennady Golovkin by now.
Jermall’s twin brother Jermell Charlo is currently the WBC junior middleweight champion. We may see Jermell moving up in weight to the middleweight division really soon, as he’s looking pretty heavy for the 154lb division. There’s really no one for Jermell to fight at junior middleweight other than Miguel Cotto, but he’s probably not going to mix it up with someone dangerous liker Jermell and definitely not Jermall.
At 154, Jermall was dominating his opposition for the most part. The only guy that gave Jermall any trouble was former WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout in tier fight last year in May 2016. You can argue the only reason Trout was able to go the distance was how much trouble Charlo had gone through to make weight. He was weight drained for that fight. Jermall fought well in the first half of the fight, but then he faded in the second half of the bout, and Trout was able to win some rounds. However, Jermall finished strong. Jermall got his weight right for his last fight at 154 against the dangerous Julian “J-Rock” Williams last December. Charlo knocked Williams down in the 2nd and 5th rounds in getting a 5th round knockout. It was a great performance from Charlo.
Heiland is going to have problems with Jermall Charlo’s punching power and speed in this fight. I wouldn’t be surprised if this fight is over with early with Charlo scoring a quick knockout in the first five rounds. Heiland is too easy to hit, and he’s too slow of hand to put up too much of a road block for a talented fighter like Charlo.
The real suspense isn’t the Charlo-Heiland fight, it’s whether the winner of the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight will take the risk of fighting Charlo. He looks he’s got the goods to dominate the middleweight division before long. That’s bad news for Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy. After Canelo spent the last 4 years fighting at catch-weights in the middleweight division at 155, he’s finally ready to fight at the full weight of 160 pounds. Golovkin is getting up there in age at 35, and obviously Golden Boy finally believes that he’s beatable. Unfortunately for Golden Boy, Charlo is now poised to crash the party and take over Golovkin’s spot as the No.1 middleweight in the division once he either moves up to 168 or is beaten by Canelo Alvarez.
Canelo won’t have an excuse for not fighting Charlo if he beats Golovkin to win his IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight titles. It would look really bad if Canelo vacates the WBC 160lb title to avoid the fight with Charlo. I don’t know what Canelo’s excuse would be for him not accepting the fight with Charlo. He can’t say that he needs to go back down to 155, because supposedly he was ready to fight at the full weight for the middleweight division. Canelo would have to take the fight with Charlo otherwise he would look like he’s ducking him. Canelo already vacated the WBC middleweight title when the WBC ordered him o fight Golovkin last year. Canelo can’t vacate another title to avoid Charlo. We could see Charlo take over the middleweight division within a year if he can get Canelo and Danny Jacobs to fight him. Golovkin is moving up to 168.