Jermall Charlo vs. Julian Williams on December 10

BoxingNews.com

By Dan Ambrose: Undefeated IBF junior middleweight champion Jermall Charlo (24-0, 18 KOs) will be defending his title against his #1 IBF mandatory challenger Julian “J-Rock” Williams (22-0-1, 14 KOs) on December 10 on Showtime Boxing at the USC Galen Center in Los Angeles, California.

This should be a good test for the 26-year-old Charlo. He did not shine in his second defense of his International Boxing Federation 154lb title last May. Charlo won the fight by building an early lead, but he really ran out of gas in the second half of the contest, as Trout came storming back to make it close on the cards.

The judges scores it 116-112, 115-113 and 116-112. As drained as Charlo looked in making weight for the fight, it’s possible that his days in the 154lb division are numbered. If Charlo is going to be rehydrating into the 170s for his fights a 154, then it might be time for him to move up to 160 so that he can challenge IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin for his titles, or go after WBO 160lb belt holder Billy Joe Saunders.

Jermall is considered by many boxing fans as the harder puncher of the Charlo brothers. His brother Jermell Charlo recently captured the vacant WBC junior middleweight title after beating John Jackson by an 8th round knockout last May in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It’s pretty neat that bother Charlo brothers are holding down world titles at the same time in the same weight. However, that doesn’t mean they’re going to hold onto their titles for long, because there are a lot of good contenders in the division that could unseat both of them. Julian Williams is a real threat to beat Jermall if he can get pst his early fireworks to wear him down like Austin Trout did.

Williams recently defeated Carcello Matanao by a 7th round knockout last March. Before that, Williams beat Luciano Leonel Cuello, Arman Ovsepvan, Joey Hernandez and Jamar Freeman. If there’s one thing you can criticize Williams on it’s his soft resume of weak opponents he’s dined on in his six-year pro career.

Williams’ match-making has been horrible with him facing nothing but weak opponents. That’s why it’s difficult to know how well Williams will do against Charo, because he has not been moved against the top fighters in the division until now. It would have been nice to see Williams in with one good fighter before his fight with Jermall. At least we’d have been able to see if Williams had the talent to win a title or not. Williams does have a very good power. You can see it in his fights. He punches very hard, and his opponents ar rarely able to handle his big punching power.

Before his fight against Trout in which he struggled in, Charlo looked great in beating Wilky Campfort, Cornelius Bundrage, Michael Finney, Lenny Botai, Norberto Gonzalez and Hector Munoz. Charlo’s win over Bundrage was really impressive, as he stopped in the 3rd round. I don’t think too many boxing fans expected to see the results of that kind for Charlo. He just blew Bundrage away in dropping him four times in the fight.