By Jeff Aranow: WBC interim middleweight champion Jermall Charlo (27-0, 21 KOs) is sounding obsessed with fighting Gennady Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KOs). Charlo says he absolutely must fight Golovkin, and he has to do it for America, even though Triple G lives in the U.S in Southern California. Charlo feels that it’s something he has to do for his country.
Charlo, 27, is already in position as Golovkin’s mandatory challenger after beating Jorge Sebastian Heiland (29-5-2, 16 KOs) by a 4th round knockout in a World Boxing Council 160lb title eliminator on July 29, 2017.
The reason the WBC hasn’t ordered the Golovkin-Charlo fight yet is because they’ve wanted to keep out of the way until Golovkin is finished with his 2-fight rivalry with his primary WBC mandatory challenger Saul Canelo Alvarez. The WBC has two mandatory challengers for Golovkin to fight – Canelo and Charlo.
“I got to fight Golovkin,” Charlo said to Fighthub. I got to fight Golovkin — for America. For everything that I stand for! With everybody on my back! I got to fight Golovkin. That’s something I have to do. To consider myself being one of the best, I got to get that fight!”
Charlo is going to have to get in line and way for his opportunity to fight GGG, because Canelo comes first for his next fight in September. There’s also IBF mandatory challenger Sergey Derevyanchenko waiting for his chance to face GGG. WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders is also an option for Golovkin to fight in his next match, but it’s not likely that fight will happen.
Team Golovkin wants Charlo to fight Daniel Jacobs with the winner of that match getting the fight against him. Charlo had been all for the idea of fighting Jacobs until this week. Charlo is now saying that the Jacobs fight will eventually happen, but he’s not saying when. By the way Charlo is talking, it doesn’t sound like he’ll be fighting Jacobs in 2018.
“Some fights I don’t see Golovkin being tactical,” Charlo said. ”You know, against Canelo I saw him being tactical until he started realizing he was losing, like it felt like he was losing, [then] he started hustling, you know? I feel like that’s the only reason it was a draw.”
Charlo is right about Golovkin being tactical in the Canelo Alvarez fight. Golovkin wasted time in the first two rounds looking to avoid getting hit, and not throwing enough shots. Golovkin gave those rounds away, and that stopped him from getting the victory. The judges scored it a 12 round draw.
Barring a knockout, it wouldn’t have mattered what Golovkin did in the first two rounds with the judge that scored it 118-110 in Canelo’s favor. Golovkin could have given Canelo a beating in the first two rounds, and still lost the fight in the eyes of that judge. It’s hard to say for sure that Golovkin would have beaten Canelo even if he had battered Canelo, because the scoring was so peculiar.
The judge that scored the fight 114-114, gave Canelo round 7, which was a round where Golovkin had pounded him for the entire three minutes. If that judge saw round 7 in Canelo’s favor, it’s possible that he would have scored rounds 1 and 2 in his favor as well even if Golovkin had beaten him up. When you have judges that are looking for certain things, you can see odd scoring like the Canelo-GGG fight.
“[The fans] believe the fight can happen, then I start thinking that the fight might happen one day,” Charlo said about a fight against Golovkin. ”Like when I started hearing people say I should fight J-Rock, then all the sudden it was like — I fought J-Rock.”
Charlo, 27, is young enough to wait on the Golovkin fight without worry about aging out and not being able to stay in top form for a year or two. Golovkin, 36, is the one that needs to get the Charlo fight out of the way sooner rather than later for him to give himself the best chance of winning it. Golovkin is still likely going to have his power even into his 40s. What he’ll end up losing is his hand speed, accuracy, reflexes and his stamina. There’s also the potential for injuries as Golovkin gets older.
The downside of Golovkin fighting Charlo now is the fight won’t attract a lot of interest from the casual boxing fans. Charlo is not a big star in the U.S. He’s at the same level as Vanes Martirosyan in terms of name recognition. A fight between Golovkin and Charlo won’t be on HBO PPV, and it won’t bring GGG a lot of money.
Golovkin can make more money fighting Canelo 3 or 4 times than he can fighting Charlo. Even if the boxing public tires of seeing Golovkin fighting Canelo, there’s still going to be more money for Triple G fighting him than there would be for him to fight Charlo. The way for Charlo to increase his popularity would be for him to fight Daniel Jacobs, Derevyanchenko, Saunders and Demetrius Andrade. It’s unlikely that Charlo will fight any of those guys though.
”Golovkin seemed to be like getting stronger as the fight [progresses],” Charlo said. ”But I noticed that he starts off real slow. He starts off real vulnerable, like he gets hit early, in the beginning. I start off accurate in the beginning. I get more, like, ready to get the fight over with, you know what I mean? Like ready to just throw punches, you know, rather than keep the smart tactics going.”
Golovkin fights like he has the case of the nerves at the start of many of his fights, and he ends up losing the 1st rounds sometimes. Against Jacobs, Golovkin did the better work in the first three rounds, but then suddenly, he started being tactical after he knocked Jacobs down in the 4th. When Golovkin needed to be aggressive and bold, he failed to do so, and he let Jacobs off the hook, and allowed him to get back into the fight in the second half of the contest. That suggests that Golovkin makes mistakes in not putting his foot on the accelerator to get guys out of there when he has them ready to be stopped.
With Charlo now sounding unsure about whether he wants to fight Jacobs now, it’s unknown who he’ll fight next. It would be a good move for Charlo’s career if he took the Jacobs fight, but it doesn’t sound like that’s in his immediate plans for his next fight. Charlo could find it difficult to get quality opponents to face him after the way he obliterated Hugo Centeno Jr. in 2 rounds in their recent fight last month on April 21.