Oscar De La Hoya wants Jermall Charlo stripped by WBC & Munguia – Derevyanchenko to fight for title

By Boxing News - 05/05/2023 - Comments

By Adam Baskin: Oscar De La Hoya says he wants the WBC organization to strip inactive middleweight champion Jermall Charlo and have the June 10th Jaime Munguia vs. Sergiy “The Technician” Derevyanchenko fight be for the vacant title.

De La Hoya, the head of Golden Boy Promotions, questions why the World Boxing Council hasn’t stripped Charlo (32-0, 22 KOs) of his 160-lb title due to him having failed to defend it in 23 months since his last defense against Juan Macias Montiel on June 19th, 2021.

It’s a rarity for a champion to be inactive for two solid years and NOT be stripped of their title by the sanctioning bodies. Charlo, 32, reportedly has been dealing with personal problems and an injury.

Still, it’s odd that the WBC didn’t give Charlo their ‘Champion in Recess’ tag, which would free up his 160-lb title, allowing the contenders to fight for it. He would then be able to fight for the belt when he’s dealt with his issues & injury problems.

Jermall says he’s returning to the ring this summer. However, he still has no signs signed, and you got to wonder whether he’ll return to the ring soon.

Munguia (41-0, 33 KOs) is fighting Derevyanchenko (14-0, 10 KOs) next month on Saturday, June 10th, in a twelve-round fight at the Toyota Arena in Ontario, California. The Munguia-Derevyanchenko event will be shown live on DAZN at 8:00 p.m. ET.

It’s not fair to the contenders in the WBC’s top 15 at middleweight for them to be sitting for two years, unable to fight for the title because Charlo is sitting on the title, nursing his issues, be it injuries or personal.

What’s going to be interesting is whether the WBC will force Jermall to defend against his mandatory Carlos Adames when/if he does come back.

Assuming Charlo returns to the ring to defend his WBC belt, it would be a sad statement if he’s allowed to maneuver around Adames to take an optional defense, which he already did in his last fight two years ago against Montiel.

If Charlo fights Adames, he’s likely to lose because he’s too talented for someone coming off a two-year layoff.

De La Hoya has taken flak from boxing fans for not being present at Ryan Garcia’s post-fight press conference after his loss to Gervonta Davis on April 22.

But in fairness to De La Hoya, he didn’t want Ryan to take the fight with Gervonta in the first place, and he said it was too soon. Ryan forced the issue.

De La Hoya also wanted Ryan to take tune-up fights to prepare him for the southpaw Tank Davis by fighting Mercito Gesta or Joseph ‘JoJo’ Diaz.

Again, Ryan chose not to follow De La Hoya’s advice for his career. With all that, you can’t blame De La Hoya for not showing up at the post-fight press conference for Ryan.

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