Jermall Charlo vs. Julian Williams this Saturday

BoxingNews.com

By Eric Baldwin: IBF World junior middleweight champion Jermall Charlo (24-0, 18 KOs) will be making his third defense of his title this Saturday night on December 10 against #1 IBF challenger Julian “J-Rock” Williams (22-0-1, 14 KOs) on Premier Boxing Champions on Showtime from the USC Galen Center in Los Angeles, California.

The Charlo-Williams fight is the chief support for the WBA World featherweight champion Jesus Cuellar (28-1) vs. Abner Mares (29-2-1) headliner match on Showtime. Charlo vs. Williams is seen by fans as a toss-up bout, as Charlo didn’t look that good in having to scrape by former WBA 154lb champion Austin Trout last May in beating him by a narrow 12 round unanimous decision.

Charlo, 26, ran out of gas in the second half of the fight and had to hold onto to get a narrow decision victory. Trout was pressuring Charlo the entire time, and giving him major problems. If Trout had a little bit more punching power, he likely would have won the fight. The difference in the fight in the end was Charlo’s harder shots. He was getting hit more by Trout, but his superior power made the difference in the fight.

In this Saturday’s fight, Charlo is going to be facing an opponent with punching power similar to his own in “J-Rock” Williams. I don’t know if you can say that the 26-year-old Williams can punch as hard as Charlo, but he hits close to the same level as him. That’s plenty hard for Williams to get the victory if he can land enough shots in the fight to put a dent in Charlo’s chin.

Other than a 6-round raw against Francisco Santana earlier in his career in 2011, Williams has been near perfect in beating his opposition one after another. Williams had a no contest fight against Hugo Centeno Jr. in 2013 in a fight that was stopped after the 4th round due to an accidental butt.

Williams recently beat Macello Matano, Luciano Leonel Cuello and Arman Osepyan. Williams has only fought once in 2016 in beating the little known Matano. The thing with Williams is he’s been facing such poor opposition since he turned pro in 2010. It’s hard to know for sure how Williams will do when he gets inside the ring with the 6’0” Charlo, because it’s such a big step up for him from the guys that he’s been facing.

There hasn’t been any quality opposition that Williams has faced. We know that Williams had a good amateur career, but the fact of the matter if he’s not been fighting good opponents since he turned pro six years ago. This is going to be a real test for Williams to show whether he belongs in the same ring with Charlo. It might not matter that Williams hasn’t been fighting good opponents.

As long as Williams has been getting good sparring from the top level opposition, he should be OK for the Charlo fight. Still, it’s not a good thing that Williams is going into Saturday’s fight against Charlo with so little experience against the good fighters in the 154lb division. Hopefully if Williams wins this fight, he’ll start fighting better opposition than he’s been. It would be bad if Williams became the IBF champion and he continued to fight guys like Matano, Cuello and Osepyan.

Jermall is considered the harder puncher of the Charlo brothers. His brother Jermell Charlo holds the WBC 154lb champion. He’s more of a pure boxer, who wins his fights by using his boxing skills and finesse. Jermall is more of a brutal puncher with the way he chops down his opponents to score knockouts. For example, Charlo won his IBF junior middleweight title by stopping Cornelius Bundrage in the 3rd round after knocking him down four times in their fight in September 2015.

The only other guy that had done that to Bundrage was Sechew Powell in stopping him in the 1st round earlier in his career in 2005. Bundrage got a lot better after the loss to Powell, Steve Forbes, Joel Julio and Grady Brewer. It was impressive the way that Jermall Charlo was able to take Bundrage out so quickly. In Charlo’s first defense, he defeated an over-matched Wilky Campfort in the 4th round last year in November 2015. That fight was too easy for Charlo, as he never needed to get out of 1st gear to get the win.

Charlo and Williams are very heavy fighters for the 154lb division. Both of them reportedly rehydrate into the 170s. They could obviously be fighting in the middleweight division at this point of their careers. However, if Charlo and Williams moved up to middleweight, they would need to tangle with champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, and that could prove to be difficult for them. That might be a little more than either of them could handle. But at some point, Charlo and Williams are going to need to move up in weight. Charlo fought like he was weight drained against Trout in his last performance. Charlo might need to move up in weight for him to be at his best.

Here are the other fights on this Saturday’s Cuellar vs. Mares card:

Josesito Lopez (33-7) vs. Todd Manuel (12-11-1)

Erickson Lubin 16-0) vs. Juan Ubaldo Cabrera (23-1)

Hugo Centeno Jr. (24-1) vs. Ronald Montes (17-4)

Sergey Lipinets (10-0) vs. Leonardo Zappavigna (35-2)

(Photo credit: Leo Wilson/Premier Boxing Champions)