By Mark Eisner: Jermell Charlo (32-1, 16 KOs) will be facing WBC junior middleweight champion Tony Harrison (28-2, 21 KOs) on December 21 in a rematch on Premier Boxing Champions [PBC] on Fox in Southern California, according to @MikeCoppinger. Harrison vs. Charlo 2 will be the main event on the PBC on Fox card.
The 29-year-old Charlo and Harrison were supposed to fight a rematch last summer on June 23, but Tony suffered an ankle injury that forced the fight to be cancelled.
Harrison was supposed to be a safe pick for Charlo last December, but he turned out to be a nightmare. Charlo made it easy for Harrison to pick him off with his perfectly placed punches by bum rushing him. Against a skilled fighter like Harrison, you’ve to fight smart, and Charlo didn’t do that. He thought he could steam roll Harrison, and he paid the price.
The Showtime commentary team had Charlo winning, and they seemed to ignore all the good work that Harrison had done. Some boxing fans believe they had their minds made up before the contest that this would be an easy fight for Charlo. When things didn’t turn out that way, the commentary team failed to acknowledge what had happened inside the ring. Harrison outsmarted and outclassed Charlo.
Charlo wants to avenge last December’s loss to Harrison
Harrison defeated Charlo by a close 12 round unanimous decision last December in a big upset on Showtime at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The scores were 115-113, 115-113 and 116-112. Charlo felt that he’d done enough to deserve the win, but the judges liked the way Harrison controlled the fight with his jab, and boxing skills.
Charlo went all out looking to score a knockout of Harrison, but that proved to be a poor game plan. Harrison took advantage of Charlo’s one-dimensional game plan by sticking him with jabs, and countering him frequently.
You can’t blame Charlo for trying to get Harrison out of there with his power game. Going into that fight, Charlo had knocked out 4 out of his last 5 opponents. Harrison had been worn down and stopped in the 9th round on two occasions by Willie Nelson and Jarrett Hurd in 2015 and 2017 respectively.
On both occasions, Harrison dominated the fight up until the 9th round, and was stopped after ran out of gas. Charlo might have assumed that Harrison would do the same thing against him, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. Harrison paced himself well, and focused on using his jab to control the wild-swinging Charlo.
Charlo needs to adapt his game to beat Harrison
If Charlo doesn’t learn from the first fight, he’s going to lose the rematch with Harrison for sure. Charlo needs to box Harrison this time, because he’s not a big enough puncher to stop him like Hurd and Nelson did.
Sources: The Tony Harrison-Jermell Charlo junior middleweight title rematch will headline PBC on FOX on Dec. 21 in Southern California. The fight was originally slated for June 23 before Harrison injured his ankle. Harrison upset Charlo via controversial decision in December ‘18.
— Mike Coppinger (@MikeCoppinger) October 29, 2019
