By Allan Fox: Jermell Charlo faces Brian Castano in a rematch for the undisputed 154-lb championship this Saturday, May 14th, on Showtime at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California. The fight card will be televised on Showtime at 9:00 p.m. ET.
WBO junior middleweight champion Castano (17-0-2, 12 KOs) and IBF/WBA/WBC champion Charlo (34-1-1, 18 KOs) fought to a 12-round draw last July in San Antonio, Texas.
Many boxing fans felt that the 32-year-old Argentinian Castano did enough to deserve the victory, as he outworked & out-landed Jermell, but two of the judges felt otherwise.
The judges need to get it right
One of the judges’ scorecards raised eyebrows with his 117-111 score in favor of Charlo. In other other words, the judge saw Charlo winning 9-3 in a fight that was razor close.
Fans saw this score as indicative that Castano never stood a chance fighting Jermell in his home state of Texas.
Whether the scoring will be any better with the Charlo vs. Castano rematch being moved to Carson, California, remains to be seen. The last thing fans need is a second controversial result between these to junior middleweights.
The last time they fought, Charlo fought in spurts, showing excellent power, and hurting Castano a couple of times. However, Charlo wasn’t active enough and allowed Castano to dominate huge stretches of the fight.
You can argue that Jermell’s low punch output was similar to how Canelo Alvarez typicallyy fights. Jermell would land a huge hard shots, and then disappear while getting bombarded by Castano.
There could be stamina issues with the 31-year-old Charlo that holds him back from being consistent with his offense. Also, there might also be some mental lapses.
Charlo seemed to lose concentration, perhaps stressing from the nonstop shots that were being thrown at him by Castano. One takeaway from their first fight is that Jermell doesn’t like to get hit, and seems afraid to let his hands go when he’s being nailed by shots from Castano.
Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis vs. Custio Clayton
In the co-feature, unbeaten welterweight contender Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis (28-0, 26 KOs) faces unbeaten 2012 Olympian Custio Clayton (19-0-1, 12 KOs) in a critical 12-round IBF 147-lb title eliminator.
The Ennis vs. Custio fight winner will be the mandatory challenger to IBF champion Errol Spence Jr.
“We learned a lot from the last fight. One of the things I learned was to be a lot more careful inside of the ring and have a little more attention and caution going in there,” said Brian Castano to the media about his unification clash against Jermell Charlo last July in San Antonio, Texas.
“He is powerful. It was a clash of power. We learned from the errors of that fight,” said Castano.
Charlo vs. Castano 2 undercard:
Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis vs. Custio Clayton
Kevin Gonzalez vs. Emanuel Rivera Nieves
Luciano Sanchez vs. Adrian Silva
