Curtis Stevens wants Jermall & Jermell Charlo

By Boxing News - 12/24/2017 - Comments

Image: Curtis Stevens wants Jermall & Jermell Charlo

By Sean Jones: Former middleweight title challenger Curtis ‘Cerebral Assassin’ Stevens (29-6, 21 KOs) says he wants to fight WBC junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo, Jermall Charlo and Gabriel Rosado. Stevens, 32, says he’ll take any of those fights.

Stevens says he wants to move down to 154, because all the top guys in that division retired or moved up to 160 to fight. Stevens feels he can move down to 154 and take advantage of the lack of talent in the weight class. He wants a title shot against Jermell right away once he makes the move down to junior middleweight.

Stevens isn’t in a good position career-wise to get a title shot against WBC 154lb champion Jermell Charlo. Stevens lost his last fight to David Lemieux by a 3rd round knockout on March 11. It was a bad knockout loss for Stevens, who was out cold on the canvas after getting flattened by a big left hook from Lemieux. Stevens has been out of the ring for the last 9 months now, and he doesn’t have any fights scheduled.

“Charlo is at 154. I’ll move down for that,” said Curtis Stevens to FightHub about wanting to face Jermell Charlo. “Everybody is at 160 though, but nobody is at 154 no more. Mayweather retired. Cotto retired. The money is at 160 and 154, but no one is there at 154. Everybody is moving up. I’m moving down,” said Stevens.

It would be a risky fight for Stevens to take on Jermell right now. Jermell, 27, has suddenly turned into a knockout artist in stopping his last 4 opponents in Erickson Lubin, Charles Hatley, John Jackson and Joachim Alcine.

“Charlo is going to be the easiest to fight,” said Stevens to ES News Reporting in talking about Jermall Charlo. “Charlo is going to box, and he’s going to fight, but he’s going to try and fight you. So, you try to knock his [expletive] out. He can get caught,” said Stevens.

Jermall Charlo would be just as dangerous a fight for Stevens as Jermell would. Stevens can still punch, and he might get lucky if he can catch Jermall with something big. I don’t think it’s a good fight for Stevens right now. He would be better off getting a couple of tune-up wins under his belt before he starts thinking about wanting to fight the Charlo brothers.

“Yeah, he’ll out-box him,” said Stevens in predicting the winner of the potential Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin rematch on May 5. “Triple G has zero losses on his record. They want his zero losses to keep continuing,” said Stevens in explaining his theory for why Golovkin was given a draw in his first fight with Canelo. “They probably want that No.2 [fight] to make more money, because they have the money for the first one. Now No.2 is more money though,” said Stevens.

Stevens is talking conspiracy theory in giving his thoughts on why the judges scored the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight a draw. In looking at the crazy scores from the 2 judges that scored it 118-110 for Canelo and 114-114, it seems that Golovkin is the one that was robbed in the fight. It wasn’t Canelo.

“Gabriel [Rosado] is trying to come back,” said Stevens. “Golden Boy is going to promote him to come back, because he just lost. Let’s me and him get it on.”

Rosado (24-11, 14 KOs) is coming off of a 6th round knockout win over Glen Tapia. Rosado lost to Martin Murray and Willie Monroe Jr. before that. The loss to Murray was a very controversial one, as it took place in the UK, and Rosado appeared to do enough to deserve the decision. Murray won a 12 round majority decision in that fight.

“Charlo moved to 160,” said Stevens in talking about Jermall Charlo. “I’ll fight his [expletive]. I’ll fight Jermell Charlo at 154,” Stevens said.

If Stevens takes a fight with either of the Charlo brothers, he’s likely going to be sorry he did so. This is a bad time for Stevens to be fighting the Charlo brothers. Stevens should try and get some wins under his belt before he starts thinking of facing one of the Charlos. If he goes into a fight with Jermell or Jermall right now, he might get knocked out quickly. You never know. Stevens should ease his way back into tough competition slowly.

Stevens has world class punching power. If he can improve his defense, he’ll give a lot of guys problems at 154. That’s a weight class that Stevens should have been fighting at all along. He was overmatched in his fight against Golovkin in 2013, out-boxed by Hassan ‘N’Dam in 2014, and blown out by Lemieux earlier this year. Stevens should have moved down to 154 after his loss to Golovkin. Stevens might have won a world title by now if he’d been fighting at junior middleweight all along. The Charlo brothers are the wrong guys for Stevens to be targeting right now. Stevens seems like he’s in the gambling mood right now with his career. He needs his promoter to put him in a winnable fight.