By Dan Ambrose: Undefeated former IBF junior middleweight champion Jermall Charlo (25-0, 19 KOs) will be fighting Jorge Heiland on the undercard of Adrien Broner vs. Mikey Garcia on July 29, according to RingTV.com. It’s not official yet that Charlo and Heiland will be on the card, but it’s expected to be announced soon. The fight card will be televised by Showtime Championship Boxing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
By Jeff Aranow: The World Boxing Council has ordered a WBC middleweight title eliminator match between #1 Jorge Sebastian Heiland (29-4-2, 16 KOs) and #2 Jermall Charlo (25-0, 19 KOs) with the winner of the fight to be the mandatory challenger to WBC 160 pound champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin.
By Eric Baldwin: Middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s WBC mandatory challenger is going to be decided with a 4-man tournament held by the World Boxing Council. This is something the WBC has decided to do during their convention this week. The 4-fighters that will face each other in the tournament are as follows: David Lemieux, Jorge Sebastian Heiland, Ievgen Khytrov and Curtis Stevens. None of these fighters are great choices for Golovkin. Jermall Charlo needs to move up to 160 to give Golovkin a good opponent in near future.
The WBC tournament wouldn’t figure to be a great deal for Heiland, who has been ranked #1 by the WBC for quite some time without getting a title shot. For Heiland to have to fight for the mandatory sport, it creates a hoop to have to jump through.
By Dan Ambrose: Former WBO middleweight champion Andy Lee (34-3-1, 24 KOs) is hoping to get a fight against #1 WBC Jorge Sebastian Heiland (28-4-2, 15 KOs) in early 2017, and from there a title shot against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin.
Lee and Golovkin were supposed to have fought each other in 2015, when Lee was the World Boxing Organization 160lb champion. However, Golovkin couldn’t take the fight due to his father passing away.
By Dan Ambrose: A fight between WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) and #1 WBC Jorge Sebastian Heiland (25-4-2, 13 KOs) is reportedly close to being made, according to ESPN Deportes.
HBO isn’t interested in the Cotto-Heiland fight, as they see it as a similar fight as the Cotto vs. Delvin Rodriguez mismatch that took place in October 2013. It was a terrible fight with Cotto destroying a timid-looking Delvin Rodriguez in just three rounds.
By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto has been linked to a fight against 41-year-old IBF junior middleweight champion Cornelius ”K-9” Bundrage for June 6th.
While it’s not a great fight or even a good fight, it’s the one that Cotto’s team have been rumored to be going after. But it looks like Cotto could miss out on the Bundrage fight, because Top Rank is interested in matching former two division world champion Tim Bradley against Bundrage. It’s a bad match-up for Bradley.
By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) is expected to announce his next opponent in the next few days for his June 6th fight in New York. A name that is being mentioned for Cotto is #1 WBC Jorge Sebastian Heiland (25-4-2, 13 KOs), according to ESPN Deportes. While the southpaw Heiland isn’t the best that the middleweight division has to offer, he at least is a contender and a highly rated one at that.
Heiland, 28, is coming off of a 10th round knockout victory over Matthew Macklin last November. It wasn’t an impressive performance from Heiland, as he took a lot of shots and really didn’t take over the fight until Macklin gassed out in the second half of the fight.
By Scott Gilfoid: #6 WBC Matthew Macklin (31-6, 20 KOs) says he plans on thinking hard about which direction he should go with his career following a 10th round knockout defeat at the hands of #4 WBC Jorge Sebastian Heiland (25-4-2, 13 KKOs) last Saturday night at the 3 Arena in Dublin, Ireland.
Macklin was knocked out by a single right hand by Heiland in the 10th round, and he was unable to get up from the knockdown in order to continue fighting.
Heiland totally dominated an old, slow and badly outclassed Macklin before stopping him with a flurry of shots in the 10th round. The fight was stopped at :42 of the 10th. In winning the fight, Heiland captured the WBC International 160 pound title.
By Scott Gilfoid: Despite having lost 3 out of his last 6 fights, #6 WBC Matthew Macklin (31-5, 20 KOs) will be fighting #4 WBC Jorge Sebastian Heiland (24-4-2, 12 KOs) in a World Boxing Council 160 middleweight eliminator bout next month on November 15th at the 3Arena, in Dublin, Ireland.
It’s obvious that Macklin has been blessed with good fortune to be fighting in an eliminator for the WBC 160 pound title, because he’s fought for world titles at 160 three times in the past three years in losses to Felix Sturm, Sergio Martinez and Gennady Golovkin, and yet here Macklin is on the verge of getting a fourth world title shot if he can get past the little known Heiland.