Jermall Charlo: I’m the best middleweight in the world

By Boxing News - 09/27/2020 - Comments

By Jeff Aronow: Last Saturday night, Jermall Charlo and his twin brother Jermell got their first try at fighting on pay-per-view on Showtime. They both came out victorious in their respective contests against Sergiy Derevyanchenko and Jeison Rosario at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut.

After the fight, Jermell proclaimed himself as the #1 middleweight in the division. Charlo didn’t want to leave it up to the boxing to decide if he’s #1, so he chose to give himself that title.

WBC middleweight champion Jermall (31-0, 22 KOs) beat former two-time world title challenger Derevyanchenko (13-3, 10 KOs) in a more decisive way with his 12 round unanimous decision than Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs both did in the past.

Charlo feels that the total scores [116-112, 117-111, and 118-11]  the judges turned in for the fight cements the view that he’s the #1 middleweight in the division.

Charlo must beat Canelo, GGG and Andrade

WBC Franchise champion Canelo Alvarez might have something to say about that. He holds wins over both Golovkin and jacobs. Although Canelo has never fought Derevyanchenko, most boxing fans would agree that he would likely defeat him easily and perhaps even knock him out.

Charlo didn’t shine in a way that one would expect to see from the #1 middleweight in the world. Yeah, he won the fight, but it wasn’t a decisive enough win for boxing fans to say, ‘Yeah, Jermall Charlo is the bet at 160.’

Image: Jermall Charlo: I'm the best middleweight in the world

Instead, Charlo’s performance left more questions than answers, but he doesn’t want to hear that. Like most fighters, Charlo sees himself as the best in his weight class. If the fans don’t agree with Jermall that he’s the best, then makes him slightly deluded.

It’s still too soon to know what the PPV numbers are, and it’s unknown if Showtime will choose to release them to the public. It’s safe to assume if the numbers are insufficient, Showtime will decide against revealing them.

One hint that the numbers were dismal would be for the Charlo wins not to be brought back for PPV unless they get lucky and have someone like Canelo Alvarez or Gennady Glolovkin fighting them. Don’t hold your breath, waiting for that.

Both Charlo brothers have been fighting as pros for over a decade, and Canelo and Golovkin haven’t given them a fight. That’s probably not going to change at this point, especially if word leaks out that the Charlo twins’ doubleheader brought in inadequate numbers.

“The whole world understands that I can fight in there with the best of them. He gave GGG [Gennadiy Golovkin] a harder test than he gave me so I think the levels showed. I’m the best middleweight in the world,” said Jermall Charlo following his win over Derevyanchenko.

For Jermall to be viewed as the #1 fighter at middleweight, he’s going to need to beat Golovkin and possibly Canelo if he returns to the division. Jermall definitely must beat GGG, and he would also need to defeat WBO middleweight champion, Demetrius Andrade.

Image: Jermall Charlo: I'm the best middleweight in the world

The networks could be a problem

What could get in the way of Charlo, 30, fighting Gololovkin, Andrade and Canelo are the networks. Charlo fights on Showtime, whereas those guys compete on DAZN. Unless Charlo’s fight against Derevyanchenko brought in tremendous PPV numbers, he’s not going to be considered for a contest with any of those fighters.

Look at it from DAZN’s perspective. They’re paying Canelo, Golovkin, and Andrade for them to compete on their network platform to bring in subscribers. If those guys elect to face Charlo, that means the match-ups will also be shown on SHOWTIME. In other words, the audience will be split. It won’t be just DAZN that benefits with the surge of new subscribers.

Showtime would also benefit. When it’s all said and done, DAZN likely won’t get enough new subscribers from a split network event for it to be worth it. Charlo is on the wrong side of the street to be wanting to fight Canelo, Andrade, and Golovkin, and that’s not going to change as long as they’re with a different network.

“We stood toe-to-toe and we didn’t back down from anything,” said Jermall about his fight against Derevyanchenko. “It was supposed to be one of the hardest fights of my career and we passed the test.

“He had a puncher’s chance, and, of course, the fight could have changed at any moment. “I wouldn’t say it was an easy fight, but we stuck to what we wanted to do and made it happen,

Korobov gave Jermall a tougher fight

It’s debatable whether Derevyanchenko gave Charlo the more challenging fight of his career. If you look at Charlo’s 2018 match against Matt Korobov, that was probably harder for him because most boxing fans thought he lost that fight. But with the Derevyanchenko match, fans had Charlo winning, but they didn’t see it an easy one.

Image: Jermall Charlo: I'm the best middleweight in the world

In Derevyanchenko’s case, he was coming off of a grueling match against Golovkin from last October, and he’s not exactly young at 34. Derevyanchenko had also had a tough fight against Danny Jacobs in 2018 and Tureano Johnson in 2017.

Before last Saturday, the only hard fight Charlo had been in was against Korobov, but that was two years ago in 2018. Since that fight, Charlo had two tune-up level easy matches against Brandon Adams and Dennis Hogan to recover from his match against Korobov. Timing is everything in boxing, and Charlo caught Derevyanchenko at the right time with him coming off of a 12 round war with GGG.

WBC junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo (34-1, 18 KOs) used his punching power to score an 8th round knockout win over IBF/WBA champ Jeison Rosario (20-2-1, 14 KOs) to become a three-belt holder at 154. Jermell’s success wasn’t as impressive as Jermall’s, as he didn’t dominate the entire fight against Rosario the way that his big brother did against Derevyanchenko.

Jermell didn’t dominate Rosario

At the time of the stoppage, Jermell was ahead on the scorecards by the scores 67-64, 67-64, and 66-65. The fight was still very much up for grabs heading into round eight. Jermell landed a jab to the midsection of Rosario and toppled him over onto his back.

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What was unusual about the body shot stoppage was the fact that Rosario didn’t clutch his stomach the way that fighters normally do when they’ve been hurt to the body. He didn’t roll around either. He laid on his back, and it was very odd. That body shot dd something to Rosario to the point where he was to hurt to even move from his back.