By Jack Tiernan: Jermall Charlo was reportedly arrested on Friday and charged with a felony in Texas for assaulting a “family/household member,” according to ESPN.
Mike Coppinger is reporting that the 31-year-old WBC middleweight champion Charlo (32-0, 22 KOs) is still currently in jail in Fort Bend, Texas. The bigger of the two Charlo twins, Jermall was arrested earlier on Friday at 1:29 p.m and is being held with a bail of $10,000.
“He [Jermall] was arrested in August and charged with robbery following an alleged incident at a San Antonio bar. Those three robbery charges were dismissed earlier this month,” said Coppinger at ESPN.
Whether this incident will affect Charlo’s chances of being selected by superstar Canelo Alvarez for his May 7th or September 17th fight this year is unknown. Jermall is one of the fighters that are in contention for Canelo’s next fight on May 7th.
If the felony charge for assault sticks for Jermall, it’s going to put Canelo in a tough position to decide whether to ignore the potential criticism that he would receive from boxing fans and choose him as his next opponent or steer clear of him.
Unless Jermall’s charges are cleared quickly, as we saw recently with Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero with his assault allegations made against him, he’s likely that the Canelo fight will be off the table.
Canelo has been offered a two-fight deal by Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing and DAZN for him to fight Dmitry Bivol on May 7th and Gennadiy Golovkin on September 17th.
Bivol’s chances of getting the fight with Canelo may have increased after this arrest of Jermall.
Some believe that Canelo was having cold feet about taking the two-fight deal with Bivol & Golovkin because those two are solid fighters, unlike Charlo, who looked shaky recently in his win over Juan Macias Montiel.
Jermall was elevated to WBC middleweight champion status outside of the ring on June 27th,2019, after the World Boxing Council elevated Canelo to Franchise champion status.
In Charlo’s four title defenses as the WBC middleweight champion, he’s beaten these fighters:
- Juan Macias Montiel
- Sergiy Derevyanchenko
- Dennis Hogan
- Brandon Adams
Many boxing fans have been critical of the low-level opposition that PBC has consistently fed Charlo since he was elevated to WBC champion by the sanctioning body.
Charlo had the opportunity to face Demetrius Andrade and David Benavidez but didn’t take those fights. Had Charlo fought those two fighters, he would have increased his popularity, had he won.
“Charlo, anybody would beat Charlo at this point because what I see, he’s going through some problems, in my opinion,” said Jose Benavidez Sr, the father of former two-time WBC 168-lb champion David Benavidez, to Fighthype.
“From what I see on social media, I don’t think he’s focused, and that’s why everybody wants to jump and fight him,” continued Benavidez Sr. on Charlo.
“Canelo wants to fight him, and Caleb Plant wants to fight him because they see they have an advantage at this point to beat him. Why don’t they choose David?
“Yeah, I give the edge to Plant right now and Canelo will kill him [Jermall Charlo] too right now, in my opinion. That’s what I think. Canelo is a super-strong fighter. He’ll beat anybody but David Benavidez.
“We are the ones with a better chance of beating Canelo. We’re not taking anything away from Canelo. He’s the best,” said Jose Sr.
The way Charlo looked in his last fight against Juan Macias, Jose Sr. could be correct about Canelo and plant both beating Jermall because he looks distracted and unfocused.
Jermall has become a millionaire in recent years, and that might be impacting his performances.
