By Dan Ambrose: Jermell Charlo revealed today that it was always just him that Al Haymon of PBC was matching against Canelo Alvarez on September 30th, not his brother Jermall, as some had mistakenly thought.
Jermell says that ESPN had the wrong information, thinking that the big Charlo, Jermall, was the one that was originally planned as the opponent for the undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo (59-2-2, 39 KOs). That was never the case.
Jermell states that he’s been training for the Canelo fight for a long time, putting on size, because he knew he was going to be his opponent.
The undisputed junior middleweight champion Jermell will move up two weight classes from 154 to 168 to challenge Canelo. While some have made a major production about this jump up in weight, it’s really nothing.
It’s not as much of a big deal as some boxing fans believe it to be. Jermell is going up two weight classes because it’s not like he’s facing a guy 25 lbs heavier.
Jermell is a better-conditioned athlete than Canelo and far younger in terms of how he’s performing. The way the 33-year-old Alvarez has looked in his last three fights, he’s the equivalent of a 40+-year-old fighter, shot to bits and an empty shell of the guy he was when he fought Gennadiy Golovkin in 2017 & 2018.
Those fights took a lot out of Canelo, and he’s been vulnerable ever since. He almost lost to Daniel Jacobs and would have been beaten by Sergey Kovalev if ‘The Krusher’ had been younger.
At best, Canelo is 10-15 lbs heavier, but that’s not enough weight to make a difference in the fight. What will determine the outcome of this fight are these factors:
- Heart & determination
- Stamina
- Mobility
- Courage
- Ring IQ
- Punch resistance
Jermell ready to knockout Canelo
“To go in there and get a dude like Canelo out of there, 2023 is the best year in boxing. I think I have nothing to worry about. I got to got to get in there and fight, and Canelo has got to get in there and fight,” said Jermell Charlo to TMZ Sport Boxing.
“I’ve been training, and I’ve been knowing about this fight. I’ve had this fight locked in. It was just a matter of time before the world got to hear it. All the people were wrong. It’s y’all fault,” said Jermell.
Canelo could be in for another one-sided boxing lesson, like the one that Dmitry Bivol inflicted on him last year. Jermell is capable of doing everything that Bivol did, but a lot more because he’s got the killer instinct to finish Alvarez.
Bivol had Canelo looking like a giant pinata in round five when he teed off with a seven-punch flurry in the fifth round, hitting him at will when he was fighting with his back against the ropes.
Instead of finishing the red-faced Canelo, Bivol backed off and let him survive. If Jermell gets Canelo in the same position on September 30th, he’ll go for the knockout, treating him like he did Brian Castano in his last fight when he stopped him when he was fighting with his back against the ropes.
“It was Jermell fighting from the beginning. It was always that, but when you’re not under Al Haymon’s roof, they don’t understand what’s going on in the game,” said Jermell.
“So obviously people with ESPN, they’re not with Al Haymon, so they can say one thing, and they’re a big outlet, so they can push it, and everybody wants to follow it, but they had the wrong Charlo from the beginning anyway.
“If you look at my size, you can tell that I’ve been getting prepared for this. I’m not the little Charlo. I’m the big Charlo,” said Jermell.
