By Sean Jones: Jermell Charlo wants to take it out of the judges’ hands when he challenges undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez on September 30th for their fight on Showtime PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Charlo is fighting ‘The Face of Boxing’ next month, and to beat a fighter of that magnitude, you need to go above and beyond to get the win.
Blasting Canelo out is the best way of ensuring victory because if Jermell leaves it in the hands of the judges, he could be crying crocodile tears afterward, wondering how he could have lost.
Some fans believe the ONLY way to defeat Canelo by a decision is to dominate him in an 11-1 fight like Dmitry Bivol did last year, and even he barely got the decision with all three judges scoring it an identical 115-113.
Don’t let the judges decide outcome
The best way for Jermell to do that is by knocking Canelo out, which won’t be easy because he’s got a head like a brick wall. Gennadiy Golovkin couldn’t put a dent in Canelo in his three fights with the superstar, and he hit him with tons of sledgehammer blows.
Jermell (35-1-1, 19 KOs) obviously is aware of Canelo’s past history of being involved in controversial fights when fighting at the T-Mobile Arena, which is where his first two bouts against Gennadiy Golovkin took place.
“Don’t put it in the judges’ hands,” said Jermell Charlo to Bigboy TV about what he learned from past fights.
Well, if Jermell does change his mind about NOT leaving it in the judges’ hands, he’d better try to duplicate the kind of performance that Bivol put in because if he doesn’t, he’ll likely come up short against Canelo.
Beating Alvarez 9-3 or 8-4 fashion won’t be enough to ensure victory. Jermell has got to take Canelo to school, keeping him pinned to the ropes, and working him over round after round.
One thing that Jermell needs is sustained combination punching of 4 to 7 shots, as Canelo shells up when his opponents unload on him and goes into his Mayweather mode, trying to pick off or dodge everything.
Jermell must take crowd out of it
“I’ve been to a lot of his fights, and I’ve seen how they go crazy for him after a good punch he lands, but I’m ready for that, though,” said Jermell about Canelo Alvarez’s fans going berserk each time he lands a punch. I’ve been a part of that type of stuff before.”
The pro-Canelo crowd is going to be going wild after everything he throws, and will be screaming their lungs out, even with his missed shots.
Jermell has got to make sure he answers back with combination punches when Canelo lands because he often wins rounds after landing two or three solid shots. The judges seem more impressed with Canelo’s small handful of shots than they do with the volume punching from his opponents.
“You can hear certain [fans], but not far, far away, but you can hear the ones close to you. You can hear the consistent voices that are in the crowd. You probably can’t see that, but maybe if you look around and look close, you can see it,” said Charlo when asked if he can see stars in the audience.
“It’s cool going home and watching the fight. ‘Oh, look who’s right there, Denzel Washington.’
“100%, and then when I see them, I say, ‘You said this on this fight.’ I been charging them up,” said Jermell on whether he listens to what the commentators say about him when watching his fights.
“It’s respectful because he knows what I put in the boxing game, and I know what he put in the boxing game. We’re both legends,” said Jermell about his interactions with Canelo.
“We’re not like young birds trying to prove something crazy to each other, or I need to act all foolish and s**t. So it’s been good. It’s peaceful, but we know what we got in front of us, and we got work to do,” said Jerrmell in his fight with Alvarez.
