By Sean Jones: Welterweight champions Keith Thurman and Errol Spence Jr. don’t see it being the end of the world for 22-year-old Erickson “The Hammer” Lubin (18-1, 13 KOs) following his brutal 1st round knockout loss to WBC junior middleweight champion Jermell “Iron Man” Charlo (30-0, 15 KOs) last Saturday night in their fight on Showtime Championship Boxing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
For the record, Lubin got caught with a hard-right hand from the 27-year-old Charlo and knocked out late in the 1st round. Lubin was not capable of getting up from the knockdown, and the fight was stopped by the referee Harvey Dock.
Charlo took apart a fighter that was seen as the next star in the 154lb. division in Lubin. There were many boxing fans that picked Lubin to beat Charlo going into the fight. A lot of the fans that didn’t pick Lubin saw the fight as a 50-50 affair. Charlo wasn’t getting much love from the boxing fans going into this match. To Charlo’s credit, he proved a lot of doubters wrong last night in knocking out a very good fighter with a single right hand to the head in the 1st round.
“I respect Lubin. He took the fight,” said Errol Spence to Fighthype. “He’s 22-years-old, even though I thought he wasn’t ready. He should have had a few more fights. He hasn’t grown into his manhood yet. Charlo is 28-years-old, 29-0. I think he should have fought a lot of tough fights before he got to this point,” said Spence about Lubin. ”Lubin wasn’t ready. Fortunately, he’s young, so he can come back. I thought he was going to get him out of there early,” said Spence about Charlo. “He’ll be back. He’s a young guy. He’s 27-years-old, so he’ll be back.”
I don’t think it was age being the reason for why Lubin lost. Charlo landed a big right hand that Lubin didn’t see coming because he was trying to duck down low. The knockout was due to Lubin having a bad habit of him trying to duck shots. That style wouldn’t have worked against Charlo even if Lubin was in his last 20s. He needs to change the way he fights if he wants to have a chance against Chalo in a rematch if there ever is one. He can’t keep ducking down low against a fighter with the kind of punching power that Charlo possesses.
”Lubin, he got caught with one of the worst punches you can get caught with in boxing. That’s the one you don’t see,” said Thurman to Fighthype in discussing Lubin’s 1st round knockout loss to Jermell Charlo. ”There’s nothing he could do. It was too devastating. Some would say he moved a little too quickly,” said Thurman in talking about the 220year-old Lubin taking on an advanced fighter like Charlo. ”You could say that. He took a devastating blow that a fighter is subject to taking inside the ring. He’s young enough to bounce back. I expect great things from him in the future. His career is not over. Everyone knows he did that work with Spence. Spence was partaking in the camp. Spence didn’t need to do that, but he likes to stay in the gym and stay busy. He had world class sparring. It’s a big thing when preparing for those fights. That punch came in early, and it ended the fight. There’s nothing you could do about it,” said Thurman.
This was a big step up in competition for Lubin to be fighting a guy as advanced as Charlo is. Lubin went from fighting the likes of Jorge Cota, Juan Ubaldo Cabrera and Ivan Montero to facing the best in the 154-lb. division in Charlo. Some in the boxing world believe Erislandy Lara is the best, but I don’t see him as being the head of the class at junior middleweight. For my money, I pick Charlo as the best guy at 154. Lara might have been the best in the junior middleweight division in 2015, but he hasn’t been since the emergence of the Charlo brothers. Jermall Charlo recently moved up to 160.
Jermell has taken his place in dominating the division. It might have been too soon for Lubin to take this kind of a step up, but it was his decision. He wanted to take on the best, and now he’s found out the hard way that it’s important to slowly move up to face the best rather than making a huge leap the way he did in facing Charlo.
It was a mostly dull 1st round between Charlo and Lubin until the last moments of the round. Lubin had done most of the work in the round, as Charlo seemed more intent on waiting for the perfect opening to land his shots. But once Charlo unloaded with his right hand with 20 seconds to go in the round, Lubin never had a chance. The right-hand shot exploded on Lubin’s chin, driving him into the ground like a nail.
Lubin’s nickname is “The Hammer,” but it was more fitting for Charlo. He’s the one that did the hammering with his big right hand. It would have been a miracle if Lubin had been able to get up from the knockdown. You could see that Lubin was trying as he could to get up, but his arms and legs were both outstretched while he was down. He had no control over them for at least 5 seconds. The referee Harvey Dock wasn’t going to stand around and give a 10 count. He halted the fight immediately at seeing how hurt Lubin was.
“I’m fine. He caught me with a blind shot. I didn’t see it coming. He landed it,” said Lubin. “I felt like when I got up I could have kept fighting, but its boxing. It happens.”
It’s a good thing that Lubin didn’t get back up. If the action had resumed, Charlo would have landed another big shot and put Lubin away. There wouldn’t have a need of a count if Charlo had been given another opportunity land one of his big pile driving punches to the head of Lubin.
I think Charlo resented all the attention that Lubin was getting from the boxing fans and the media going into the fight. Lubin was being treated like he was he champion, and Charlo the challenger. It was strange because Lubin had done nothing in his career as a pro other than beating carefully selected opposition that his management had dug up for him to fight and obviously look good against. They would have done Lubin a big favor if they had started putting him in with quality opposition a year ago to get him ready for the likes of Charlo.
“They were giving him a lot of attention. I was quiet the whole time,” said Charlo. “They said they were going to come take my title. I had to defend it. They didn’t know what I was brining into this and I think (Lubin) was worried about the wrong things.”
Lubin was so out of it that he thought he should have been allowed to keep fighting. That would have played out well. Poor Lubin would have been at the mercy of Charlo. Lubin was so hurt that Charlo would have likely knocked him out with a jab.
The win for Charlo does a lot for his career to show that he could be the best fighter in the weight class. All Charlo needs to do now is beat Jarrett Hurd and Erislandy Lara to install himself as the best fighter in the 154-lb. weight class.