By Sean Jones: Unbeaten middleweight champion Jermall Charlo and Demetrius Andrade have the possibility of a fight between them, according to promoter Eddie Hearn.
The chances of Hearn making the fight between WBC 160-lb champ Charlo, 32, and Andrade aren’t good, unfortunately. Although Andrade will take the fight in a second, Jermall seems hesitant and risk-averse right now.
Since he first signed him, the Matchroom Boxing boss has been trying to line up a big fight for his fighter Andrade (30-0, 18 KOs), but he’s had no takers.
Hearn says Stephen Espinoza of Showtime said WBC 160-lb champion Jermall Charlo (32-0, 22 KOs) isn’t tied to his network and that he could fight for other platforms.
Needless to say, this news made Hearn happy because he now believes nothing is preventing him from making a unification fight between Charlo and WBO 160-lb champion Andrade.
The only thing that could prevent the fight from getting made is Charlo because he’s got to want the fight. If Charlo is reluctant to fight Andrade, for whatever reason, it won’t matter if Showtime is giving him the green light to face him.
“I saw Stephen Espinoza yesterday say that you know Charlo wasn’t tied to Showtime, and he wouldn’t stop him taking that fight anywhere else. That was music to our ears,” said Hearn to the DAZN Boxing Show.
“But at the same time. We’re not tying, and DAZN won’t tie Andrade to DAZN if that fight presents itself because you have to let these guys fight these kinds of fights,” said Hearn.
It might not matter that Showtime isn’t going to be an obstacle for Jermall to fight Demetrius.
The way that Charlo, 32, was talking down the idea of fighting Andrade at his post-fight press conference last month on June 19th, he sounded unenthusiastic about facing him.
When Jermall was asked about potentially fighting Andrade next, he gave these reasons why the fight couldn’t happen:
- Networks
- Promoters
- Andrade being a “terrible fighter”
- No one knows Andrade is
Jermall finished his rant on why he can’t fight Andrade by saying that he needs to beat Montiel before he’d consider fighting him. This obstacle made it clear that Andrade will never get a fight against Charlo no matter what he does.
“Charlo has to be careful that he doesn’t start fighting to that level, and it’s because he’s a brilliant fighter,” said Hearn about Jermall’s recent June 19th fight against Juan Macias Montiel.
“So, when you’re Charlo, you’ve got to be careful that you don’t become almost like a Terence Crawford and keep taking these fights that’s actually going to deplete your value,” said Hearn.
You can argue that Charlo is already depleting his value by fighting lesser opposition, as he’s been doing that since he moved up to the 160-lb division in 2017.
Even before Jermall moved up to 160, he wasn’t taking on much-talented opposition at 154.
The only two talented fighters that Charlo fought during his nine years at junior middleweight were Julian ‘J-Rock’ Williams and Austin Trout.
The guys that Charlo has fought since moving up to 160 have been ho-hum guys, except for Sergiy Derevyanchenko.
Gennadiy Golovkin had beaten Derevyanchenko in his previous fight and took a lot out of him.
Charlo’s fights at 160:
- Matt Korobov
- Jorge Sebastian Heiland
- Hugo Centeno
- Dennis Hogan
- Juan Macias Montiel
- Brandon Adams
With the good money that Charlo is getting from Showtime to fight no-name opposition, you can understand why he wouldn’t want to deplete his oil well.
The way Charlo is getting nice paydays to compete against lesser opposition on Showtime, there’s no reason for him to spoil things by fighting a good opponent like Andrade and wind up losing.
Those nice paydays from Showtime will disappear if Charlo gets beaten by Andrade.