By Brian Webber: Jermell Charlo says after his fight with Canelo Alvarez on September 30th, he will see if he can negotiate a fight together with Terence Crawford.
Depending on the outcome of Jermell’s contest with undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo (59-2-2, 39 KOs) next month, it could prove to be a near-impossible task of negotiating a fight with Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs).
For Crawford’s sake, he shouldn’t sit around too long celebrating his victory over Errol Spence Jr. and waiting on the outcome of Jermell’s fight with Canelo.
It would be a waste of time on Crawford’s part to sit idle, pinning his hopes on a fight with Jermell happening next. While it’s possible that a fight could happen, it might not, and Crawford would have nothing to show for his wasted time.
What Crawford should do is move up to 154 and get a fight under his belt against one of these contenders:
- Brian Mendoza
- Sebastian Fundora
- Jesus Ramos
- Xander Zayas
- Erickson Lubin
- Charles Conwell
Crawford likely feels that his win over Spence Jr. on July 29th would mean that he deserves to be the A-side against Charlo (35-1-1, 19 KOs), and if not, A-side.
If Jermell defeats Canelo, it would be a backward move on his part to drain back down to 154, giving Crawford the weight advantage.
That would be foolish for Jermell to do because he can make excellent money staying at 168 to fight Canelo again, David Benavidez, Caleb Plant, David Morrell, and Dmitry Bivol.
Fighting Crawford would only make sense if he was willing to come up to 168 and if the fight could be negotiated. It sounds like it could be a really long time drain on Jermell’s part to try and negotiate a fight with Crawford.
If Jermell isn’t ready to sacrifice 12 to 15 months trying to bang out a deal with Crawford like Spence did, he should steer clear of him.
“After this, we’ll see what we can do with Terence Crawford after I get my era of Canelo out of the way,” said Jermell Charlo to Showtime Boxing. “154 is just what I weigh in at. Of course,” said Jermell when asked if he views himself more as a middleweight.
It doesn’t seem promising that a fight between Jermell & Crawford can happen. If Jermell loses to Canelo in a one-sided fight, moving back down to 154 to fight Crawford would be understandable.
As long as Jermell is comfortable with making weight for the junior middleweight division, moving back would be good because he’d have more options there than he would if he moved to 160.
“Caught the big fish, now I’m hunting the lil cub @twincharlo,” said Crawford on Instagram.