Jermall Charlo says Canelo is “scared” to fight him

By Sean Jones: Jermall Charlo says Saul Canelo Alvarez is running “scared” of him, and hiding behind his promoter Oscar De La Hoya to avoid defending his World Boxing Council middleweight title against him. The unbeaten Charlo (27-0, 21 KOs) is Canelo’s mandatory challenger, and he’s waiting for either the Mexican star to step up and face him finally or for the WBC to do their job by ordering the fight.

Charlo notes that Gennady Golovkin is still recovering from his recent loss to Canelo, so he feels that he should be the one that faces Alvarez while GGG recovers from his ordeal from last September.

“He’s scared,” Jermall Charlo said to Fighthype about Canelo. “Where you at cinnamon? We been calling you out for a long time. It’s about time you show up. Let’s give the people what they want to see. The people want to see us fight the best in the world. We feel like we’re the best in the world.”

De La Hoya mentioned Charlo’s name as one of the fighters that is in the running for Canelo’s May 4 fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Golden Boy Promotions have already booked the T-Mobile Arena for the Cinco de Mayo holiday weekend in 2019. However, De La Hoya also mentioned IBF middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs as an option for Canelo to fight on May 4.

De La Hoya said that Jacobs is the fighter that he personally would like to see Alvarez fighting on that date. There’s also a very good chance that former IBF champion David Lemieux could be the guy that Canelo fights on May 4. Lemieux is fighting Tureano Johnson this Saturday night in the co-feature bout on the Canelo vs. Rocky Fielding (27-1, 15 KOs) on DAZN at Madison Square Garden in New York. Fighting in the co-feature means that Lemieux is someone that Golden Boy is trying to highlight with the boxing public.

“Come on, man. Stop running behind [Oscar] De La Hoya,” Jermall said about Canelo. “Stop doing all that, man. Stop acting like that. You know what’s up. The belts making the rankings, and that’s what we’re here for. we’re number one in the world. We’re the best in the world. You see it.”

Canelo will need to make a decision at some stage whether it’s worth it or not to keep the WBC title, as Charlo is breathing down his neck as the mandatory challenger for the belt. Canelo doesn’t like being dictated to by the sanctioning bodies with them telling him who has to fight when he’s holding their title. However, boxing is a sport, not a popularity contest, so Canelo will need to make a decision sooner or later whether he feels it’s worth it to continue to be the WBC middleweight champion.

Canelo is potentially putting the WBC in a bad position by them taking their time in ordering him to fulfill his mandatory requirements by defending against Charlo, who has been waiting 1 1/2 years for his mandated title shot. Charlo defeated Jorge Sebastian Heiland by a 4th round knockout in July 2017. The WBC should have already ordered the WBC champion to defend against Charlo. If the sanctioning body doesn’t want to make a mockery of the sport, they’re going to need to order Canelo to defend against Jermall. If Canelo chooses to dig his heels into the sand and refuse, then the WBC will need to strip him of his title, and let fighters that are willing to defend it on an annual basis when ordered.

Jermall and Jermell Charlo aren’t guys that Canelo can wait out until they get old before fighting them, which is what a lot of boxing fans believe that he did with Golovkin. Canelo was being called out four years ago when GGG was 32-years-old. It wasn’t until Golovkin turned 35 that Canelo finally fought him. Was that intentional on Canelo’s part for him to wait until GGG turned 35 before fighting him? It’s impossible to know. Only Canelo knows why waited three years to fight GGG.

“You already know that GGG is getting older,” Charlo said. “The next terror in the division is what? Canelo? I’ll take care of him first. If GGG can recover from what he been through. I mean, nobody really has, so we’ll see what they do next. We’re here. We’re going to rule the division. My twin brother is the WBC champion, the main champion. We’re natural born killers. We fight to win. We’re competitors. All we ever wanted was to be the best in the world, and we’re going to stay at the top forever. Let’s get it,” Charlo said.

The Charlo brothers are arguably the next stars at 154 and 160. However, it looks like Golden Boy and Canelo aren’t going to make it easy on them to shove him off his mountain. One way for Canelo and Golden Boy to avoid the Charlo take over is by not fighting them. That’ll work for awhile, but not permanently. It took GGG years for him to get a fight against Canelo. Before that, GGG had failed to get a fight against Felix Sturm when he held the WBA title. GGG never did get a fight against Sturm. The question is will Charlo never get a fight against Canelo? That would be sad if the Mexican star never fought Charlo and his brother Jermell. It’ll look bad at some point if Canelo doesn’t take the fight with the Charlo, given that they’re calling him out.

This month, Jermall will be defending his interim WBC middleweight title against former 2-time middleweight world title challenger Willie Monroe Jr. on December 22 LIVE on Fox and Fox Desports from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. This part of a Premier Boxing Champions telecast. Jermall will be making a stay busy fight while he waits for the WBC to get around to ordering Canelo to defend the belt against him. It’s quite possible that when the WBC does eventually order Canelo to fight Jermall, he’ll vacate the belt rather than fight him. Coming events have cast their shadows before. Canelo vacated the WBC title after the sanctioning body ordered him to face then 33-year-old GGG. Canelo didn’t want to fight GGG, so he vacated the belt. Once burned twice shy, as they say. Some boxing fans argue the reason why the WBC hasn’t ordered Canelo to defend their belt against Charlo already is out of fear of having him vacate the title like he did when they ordered him to defend the belt against GGG two years ago when he was the mandatory. It would be nice to see Canelo take a different approach this time by defending the WBC title against Charlo rather than vacating it like he did in 2016.