By Allan Fox: Eddie Hearn wonders whether the huge money that Jermell Charlo got last weekend had something to do with him looking so uninspired against superstar Canelo Alvarez.
Hearn questions whether Jermell (35-2-1, 19 KOs) was paid too much money or he had too much going into the contest with undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo (60-2-2, 39 KOs).
Canelo is partly to blame for this by selecting an older fighter two divisions below him, who hadn’t fought in 15 months, and taking his sweet time returning to the ring to defend against his WBO mandatory Tim Tszyu.
Jermell clearly didn’t believe he could win, so he just took the fight for the payday.
During the build-up of the fight, Jermell talked a lot about him chasing greatness, but that clearly wasn’t the case. It was about chasing a paycheck. This is a good lesson for Canelo.
If he’s going to be hand-picking opponents from two to three weight classes below him, like Jermell & Terence Crawford, money will obviously be their motivation for taking the fight.
We never saw Jermell show any kind of motivation to move up to 168 in the past when less popular champions helped belts. The same applies to Crawford. He never showed any motivation to fight for the title at 168 when David Benavidez & Caleb Plant held belts at super middleweight.
Was Jermell paid too much money?
“I thought he looked good. I knew he’d come back with a little bit more vengeance. I thought Charo was just poor,” said Eddie Hearn to the media, when asked about his thoughts on the Canelo Alvarez vs. Jermell Charlo fight last weekend.
“Even when Golovkin fought Canelo in the third fight. It’s like, I don’t know. Are you getting paid too much money? Have you got too much money because the special ones that have got too much money still stick it on the line? [for example] Canelo, AJ. But it almost looked like Charlo was like, ‘I’m getting,’ 8 million, 10 million, and I was like okay.”
Was Jermell just there for the payday against Canelo?
Canelo has to understand that fighters mainly want to fight him so they can make millions and get retirement money so they don’t have to box. They don’t believe they can win, and they just want money.
“It’s almost like, ”Let’s not hurt each other in here tonight. We’re just going to get our money,‘ and all the talk about legacy, sticking on the line. A lot of fighters go, ‘I’d rather get knocked out carried out than lose on points,’ but actually, how many fight like that?
“You got two of them [Josh Warrington & Leigh Wood] fighting like that on Saturday. So, it [Canelo-Jermell] was a really disappointing fight, awful,” said Hearn.
Charlo’s performance ruined it for other fighters
“I think so,” said Hearn when asked if the disappointing fight last Saturday put a pin in the possibility of a fight between Canelo and Terence Crawford happening. “Crawford would have much more desire, but it’s there are weight classes for a reason, and we always forget that in boxing.”
After this bad experience, Canelo needs to learn from this and focus on providing the fans better value for their money by ensuring he faces opposition from the 168 & 175-lb divisions, not from two or three weight classes below.
“I’ve been guilty of that in the past of having a fighter step up a couple of divisions. ‘Oh, he struggles at that weight, he’ll be fine up at that weight, but in the changing room, you see a guy in Charlo that actually looked chubby and like out of shape, and it was just a wrong weight class,” said Hearn.
“I think the plan would have been to do Charlo and then have a really competitive fight and then fight the brother [Jermall], but now that’s dead because of the [disappointing] fight, as we you know.
“So Benavidez is the fight, but I don’t think they’ll do that fight until next year. So it’s going to be interesting to see who they choose. We’d love to make it, but whether they’ll do it or not is another,” said Hearn about whether a rematch with Dmitry Bivol is a possibility for Canelo’s next fight.
https://youtu.be/cLC8eMAESX0?si=yi2gOrkpR56XIS6E&t=242