By Jim Calfa: WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo has suffered a back injury training, resulting in his June 18th fight on Showtime against Maciej Sulecki needing to be postponed.
The Charlo vs. Sulecki fight will be rescheduled at a later date for the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.
“The card will be rescheduled to a new date that will be announced pending an assessment of when Charlo can return to training,” per a press release from Showtime.
It’s a risky fight for Charlo (32-0, 22 KOs) to be taking against the upset-minded Sulecki, and there’s not much to gain from this match.
This is the equivalent of the Super Bowl for Sulecki, as he’ll be highly motivated against Charlo, knowing that he could put himself in a position to make a ton of money in a rematch or against one of the bigger names at 160 or 168.
One gets the sense that Jermall isn’t nearly as motivated fighting Sulecki because it’s a no-win situation. Even if Jermall beats Sulecki, the boxing world won’t give him any credit because the Polish fighter has already been defeated before by Demetrius Andrade and Danny Jacobs.
Those two fighters had a ton of problems against Sulecki. Jacobs barely beat him, and Andrade was exhausted in the later rounds from the fast pace that he set.
If Charlo is looking past Sulecki towards bigger money fights down the road, he could quickly lose to this guy because he’s better than anyone he’s faced as a professional.
Jermall might be better off waiting until later this year before fighting again in a lucrative match against the winner of the Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennadiy Golovkin III fight in September.
Canelo wants to fight in December, and that would be an ideal time for Jermall to return to the ring once his back injury heals. There’s a much bigger payoff for the unbeaten Charlo against Canelo than there would in facing Sulecki (30-2, 11 KOs).
Charlo has been fighting only once a year for the last two years, so if he fights in December, he would still be getting his one fight this year.
Canelo wants to face Jermall, and Golovkin might be up for the match-up as well if he comes out victorious against Canelo on September 17th.
Jermall is more than big enough to move up to 168 to fight either of those two guys and do well. Canelo will likely beat Golovkin and turn his attention to Charlo or John Ryder for his December fight.
