By Brian Webber: In a fight expected to be marketed as ‘undisputed vs. undisputed,’ Jermell Charlo (35-1-1, 19 KOs) will be looking to end King Canelo Alvarez’s two-year reign as the four-belt undisputed champion on September 30 when they meet on Showtime PPV in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Jermell’s twin Jermall had been the one that fans thought was going to get the fight against Canelo, but it’s possible that he was never the in the running.
The troubled Jermall’s two years out of the ring and the rumors of his personal problems are likely what wrecked his chances of being hand-picked by Canelo to be his opponent.
Nevertheless, the Mexican star had never seemed overly eager to fight Jermall when the two fought at 160 at the same time.
One can remember Canelo gladly accepting the WBC’s Franchise tag when Jermall was breathing down his neck as his mandatory, which allowed Alvarez to circumvent his requirements of defending against him.
Jermell is smaller, weaker, and less dangerous than his twin Jermall, and the only thing Canelo needs to worry about him is getting outworked & outboxed.
As tired & as faded as Canelo has looked in his last three fights, it’s entirely possible that Jermell can outbox. Whether he’s given the decision is another matter.
The Canelo vs. Charlo fight is likely to be staged at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, and that’s the same venue where Gennadiy Golovkin fought the superstar in their first two controversial fights.
It’s also the same venue that Dmitry Bivol barely squeaked by with a narrow twelve-round unanimous decision over Caanelo last year in May after appearing to win ten of twelve rounds, only to see the judge turning in identical 115-113 x 3 scores.
Undisputed junior middleweight champion Jermell has been out of the ring since last year in May when he knocked out WBO champ Brian Castano in the tenth round.
That performance was arguably the best of Jermell’s 16-year career. If he can get back to that same level against Caneelo, he’s got an excellent chance of winning the contest.
There’s no word about Jermell being given a catchweight to make things a little easier for him to come up in weight from 154.
You have to assume that Canelo won’t be giving Jermell a handicap for the weight because he’s the A-side and doesn’t need to help his opponents. In other words, they either accept the deal offered to them, or they’re out of the Canelo sweepstakes.
One positive that can come out of this fight is Jermell will do the hard work by marketing the fight with his fiery temper, and the thing is, he won’t even try. Just being his normal, highly agitated self, Jermell will create headlines to liven up Canelo’s normally tediously dull press conferences.
Hopefully, Jermell keeps it together and doesn’t go berserk if Canelo shoves him as he did with Caleb Plant in their kickoff press conference in 2021.
Charlo’s job will be to move up two weight classes from 154 to rip the four titles away from the fading Canelo (59-2-2, 39 KOs), who has lost a few steps and looked ready to be kicked off his throne.
Interestingly, Canelo hand-picked a fighter from two weight classes blow him to defend his super middleweight undisputed championship against Jermell Charlo rather than doing the right thing by showing some class and defending against his WBC mandatory David Benavidez, who has been working hard to earn the opportunity.
This will be Canelo’s first of three fights in his new three-fight contract with PBC. It’s still unknown who the other two opponents will be, but if Jermell wins, he can punch his ticket for a second fight against Alvarez.
