By Sean Jones: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya says he’s thinking of putting together a double-header between Saul Canelo Alvarez and WBC interim middleweight champion Jermall Charlo, and Jaime Munguia facing Jermell Charlo. However, De La Hoya says Munguia isn’t ready to fght top level opposition yet because of his youth.
De La Hoya isn’t saying when he wants to make those two fights, but it’s going to have to take place soon, since the unbeaten Jermall (28-0, 21 KOs) is Canelo’s mandatory challenger for his WBC middleweight title.
The World Boxing Council will need to order the Canelo vs. Charlo fight sooner or later, being that Jermall has already been waiting two years for his mandatory title shot. Jermall earned the mandatory position in 2017, and the WBC has been slow in ordering the fight. Unless the WBC is going to let Canelo not defend against his mandatory for five years like the sanctioning body did with former WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson, they’ve going to need to order that fight before long.
Munguia (31-0, 26 KOs) has a minor test that he needs to pass this Saturday against #3 WBC challenger Takeshi Inoue (13-0-1, 7 KOs) at the Toyota Center, in Houston, Texas. De La Hoya says he doesn’t know if the 22-year-old Munguia will be able to beat the 5’8″ Inoue, but hes hoping he will. Munguia vs. Inoue will be streamed on DAZN on the internet this Saturday, January 26.
“One of the problems with these young fighters winning world titles at such a young age, a lot of these fighters aren’t ready to fight the very top, the very best,”“Jaime Munguia, the fact that he’s 21-years-old, we have big plans for him, but first things first. We want to make sure he gets the experience. We want to make sure he’s solid at 154, and then we fight one of the best,” De La Hoya said.
It appears that De La Hoya is saying is that he’s not going to put Munguia in with any of the talented fighters at 154 until he gets more experience under his belt first. As such, it would seem highly unlikely that Golden Boy Promotions will make the move to setup a fight between one of the Charlo twins like Jermell (31-1, 15 KOs) anytime soon, Jermell is coming off of a 12 round unanimous decision loss in his last fight against Tony Harrison (28-2, 21 KO) on December 22 of last year, but he’s still a guy that is in the prime of his career at 28-years-old, and very experienced in comparison to Munguia.
If the fight between Munguia and Jermall Charlo is to be made, it’s hard to imagine De La Hoya making it in the the next two to three years. What that means is if De La Hoya is going to wait until he Munguia gains more experience before matching him against Jermell, it seems to indicate that Jermall Charlo will need to wait until Munguia is ready for his fight against Jermell before he can get his mandatory title shot against Canelo.
Hopefully it doesn’t workout that way, because it means that the boxing public is going to need to wait a long time before they see Canelo vs. Jermall, but it sounds like that’s going to be the situation. De La Hoya might choose to wait until Munguia has more experience under his belt before he makes the Canelo-Jermall and Munguia-Jermell double-header. Jermell isn’t ranked in the top 15 with the World Boxing Organization, so the WBO can’t force Munguia to fight him. And if Jermell does win back his WBC junior middleweight title after he faces Harrison in their rematch in April or May, Munguia still won’t have to face him until Golden Boy decides they want to make that fight.
The only guy that Golden Boy needs to worry about it Jermall, who is Canelo’s WBC mandatory. As long as the WBC let’s continue to bypass Jermall, then there’s no threat of him losing to the talented fighter. You can argue the WBC is making it difficult for Charlo to get his mandatory title shot against Canelo, as he’s already had to face Hugo Centeno Jr. for the interim WBC middleweight title, and then make a defense against Matt Korobov since he became the mandatory for the WBC 160 lb title. The WBC now wants Jermall to have to fight Gennady Golovkin to decide Canelo’s next mandatory. That move by the WBC doesn’t make sense, because Charlo is already Canelo’s mandatory challenger. He earned that spot in 2017 in beating Jorge Sebastian Heiland by a fourth round TKO. Charlo having to fight Golovkin in another eliminator is pointless. The WBC should be ordering Canelo to defend against Charlo, but for some reason they’re not going that.
“[Takeshi] Inoue, I don’t know how difficult he’s going to be. I don’t know if Munguia is going to lose or win,”“It’s going to be a great fight, but I have bigger plans for Jaime Munguia. I have plans. For instance, imagine Canelo fighting one of the Charlo brothers [Jermall], and imagine imagine Munguia fighting the other [Jermell] Charlo brother. That’ll be a great card. That’ll be a solid card, that’ll excite the people. Obviously, first things are first. Canelo has Jacobs in May. Jaime has Inoue this Saturday. I’m sure the Charlos have their plans, but that’s what I’m envisioning for the future of boxing, putting the best against the best each time,” De La Hoya said.
It doesn’t seem too likely that the Canelo vs. Charlo and the Munguia vs. Jermell doubleheader will get made anytime soon. One major stumbling block that could make those fights near impossible to put together is the different networks they fight on. Canelo and Munguia fight on DAZN, whereas the Charlo brothers are with Premier Boxing Champions and fight on FOX, FOX Deportes and SHOWTIME. PBC isn’t likely going to let the Charlos fight on DAZN, and a fight between them and Canelo and Munguia would need to be on PPV for it to be worth it. If those fights took place on FOX or SHOWTIME, those would easily be a PPV worthy card, but that might not be possible given that Canelo and Munguia are with DAZN. The fight card that De La Hoya talks about would be a great one if it happens, but could a deal be made between DAZN and PBC to have that card made? It’s unclear at this time. De La Hoya is talking a lot, but he might just be throwing names out there to help increase the popularity of his young fighter Charlo. Canelo is soon going to run out of opponents for him to fight. Even if Gennady Golovkin signs with DAZN, Canelo is still going to run out of popular fighters for him to compete against at 160. The guys at 168, Callum Smith, Gilberto Ramirez, George Groves and David Benavidez, aren’t popular enough for Canelo to bring in a lot of subscribers to DAZN in fighting them. Canelo needs the Charlo brothers, both of them, as well as Jarrett Hurd, and maybe even light heavyweight Dmitry Bivol, in order to continue to bring in great ratings. Canelo won’t be able to bring in a lot of subscribers once he exhausts the small number of top middleweights in the division. These are the most talented middleweights at this time;
Gennady Golovkin: recently beaten
Jermall Charlo: looking poor in last fight
Jaime Munguia
Rob Brant
Daniel Jacobs
Sergiy Derevyanchenko: recently beaten
Demetrius Andrade: looked poor in last fight
Billy Joe Saunders: tested positive for a banned substance recently
Saul Canelo Alvarez
