By Jim Dower: WBC junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo (30-0, 15 KOs) was at ringside last Saturday night to watch the unification fight between IBF World 154 lb. champion Jarrett Hurd (22-0, 15 KOs) and WBA Super World champion Erislandy Lara (25-3-2, 14 KOs) at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Charlo, 27, wasn’t fazed by wha he saw from Hurd in his 12 round unanimous decision win over the 34-year-old Lara. Instead of giving Hurd credit for the hard-fought victory, Charlo downgraded Lara, saying he ran out of time on his career. Charlo is convinced that if he faces Hurd next, he’ll beat him without a doubt.
”Lara is good, he’s just a crafty fighter, but his time is up,” Charlo said to Fighthub. ”It’s Hurd’s time now. Let Hurd enjoy these belts, because they know what it is.”
A fight between Charlo and Hurd won’t be happening next unfortunately. Charlo will be fighting on June 9 against possibly Austin Trout on Showtime Boxing at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. If Charlo does fight Trout, 32, it’ll give the fans the chance to compare how he does against him in comparison to Hurd. Trout lost to Hurd by a 10th round stoppage last October. Hurd looked really good in that fight in stalking Trout and hurting him with heavy shots until he could no longer handle the pressure any longer.
Hurd is a bad match-up for Charlo, who doesn’t handle pressure very well when fighting guys that can take his pot shots and fire back with constant punches. Charlo looked like he was mentally ready to fold when he was put under pressure in his fights against Vanes Martirosyan, Gabriel Rosado and Demetrius Hopkins. The judges’ scoring for the Rosado and Martirosyan fights looked off with Charlo being given a lot of rounds that he appeared to lose.
Rosado didn’t even put a lot of pressure on Charlo, but once he started to late in the fight, he took over and finished strong. Charlo can’t throw a lot of punches. That’s not part of his game. Charlo is another Floyd Mayweather Jr. pot shot fighter. His game centers on his pot shot ability. Hurd is the opposite. He wins his fights by throwing 80 to 100 punches per round and wearing his opponents down with his work rate.
“Hurd go to sleep. I hit hard. You know that,” Charlo said. ”I’m winning all the belts. Hurd get hit a lot. The man still been getting hit. The man been getting hit since Trout. I thought he was going to learn from that fight and, you know, I understand Lara is a crafty fighter, he moves a lot and he do his thing. So, right now, you already know I’m the best,” Charlo said.
If Charlo is smart, he’ll leave Hurd alone and wait for him to vacate his IBF/WBA 154 lb. titles and move up to the 160 lb. weight class. Once Hurd is gone, Charlo will have a good chance of capturing the IBF, WBA and WBO titles if his management is able to setup fights against whoever captures the IBF/WBA titles, and against WBO champion Sadam Ali.
It’s going to be more difficult for Charlo once Hurd vacates his IBF/WBA titles, because it’ll mean that he’ll need to go after two belts that are no longer in the possession of one fighter. I still think that’s the best direction for Charlo to go in, because I don’t think he can beat Hurd. It’s a wrong style for him. Lara was much tougher fight for Hurd than Charlo. I think it’s going to be a very easy fight for Hurd.
”When I defeat Charlo, I’m moving up,” Hurd said. ”I’m not staying and defending the titles. When I defeat Charlo, I’m still moving up for the bigger fights. The big money fights are at 160. I’m going to fight Charlo before I move up. If the business is right with Charlo, we’ll fight him next. If not, we’ll fight somebody else,” Hurd said.
If Charlo’s management don’t want to put the fight together against Hurd, then you can forget about that one. Showtime Boxing will surely be asking for them to make the Hurd-Charlo fight. Whether they do or not is the big question. Charlo has a good thing going right now with all the weak contenders the World Boxing Council has ranked in the top 15 at 154. Charlo doesn’t have to worry about anyone for a long, long time due to the weak ranking. As the IBF/WBA junior middleweight champion, Hurd can’t force Charlo to fight him if he doesn’t want that fight. Charlo can avoid making the fight if he doesn’t like the idea of taking this match.
“I got one man to beat. One man to beat to get all of the belts, and I can do it,” Charlo said about Hurd. “The real honest-god truth to beating Hurd is just punch that mother. Punch him. Throw punches at him. I ain’t moving. Let’s fight. Let’s do it.”
Charlo should try ad go after WBO champion Sadam Ali, because that’s a guy that he would have a better chance of beating than Hurd. You can argue that Charlo is a weak version of Erislandy Lara. He’s not as mentally strong or as skilled as Lara, and he seems to come apart when he’s pressured against guys that can take his occasional pot shots that he likes to land. Erickson Lubin didn’t have the chin to take Charlo’s pot shots, and he came into that fight too soon with no experience.
Jermell is a good fighter, but I think Hurd is all wrong for him. He’s too busy, too rugged and much too powerful for Jermell. If that fight gets made, I see Charlo falling apart within 6 rounds, and maybe less if Hurd starts early with his high volume attacking style.
