WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo has suffered a back injury training for his June 18th fight against challenger Maciej Sulecki, resulting in the match needing to be postponed and rescheduled later.
Boxing fans on social media are suspicious of Jermall’s back injury, believing the real reason for him pulling out because of poor ticket sales for the fight. Who knows?
Choosing June 18th to fight wasn’t a great move by his promoters because that’s the exact date that IBF/WBC light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev will be facing WBO champion Joe Smith Jr. on ESPN.
There’s a lot of interest from boxing fans in seeing Beterbiev and Smith Jr. battle it out because the winner could face WBA champion Dmitry Bivol or even Canelo Alvarez down the road.
It’s a fight that hadn’t caught the interest of the boxing world, as Jermall is expected to have an easy time defeating the #5 WBC Sulecki (30-2, 11 KOs).
Jermall, 32, would be doing himself a big favor if he walked away from the Sulecki fight altogether because he’s hurting his career by fighting guys that the fans have no interest in seeing him compete against.
If Charlo wants to help his career, he should go in another direction and fight guys that will increase his popularity to prepare him for Canelo Alvarez.
It wouldn’t be a big deal if Charlo faced Sulecki after having fought quality contenders like Janibek Alimkhanuly, Erislandy Lara, Demetrius Andrade, or Chris Eubank Jr.
Charlo has been fighting one obscure contender after another, and Sulecki is yet another one of the lackluster opponents he’s been set up to face by his management.
Jermall has been fighting only once a year for the last two years, and he’s already been out of the ring for 12 months since June 2021. In that fight, the 32-year-old Charlo struggled to defeat Juan Macias Montiel, a fighter that had been knocked out in two rounds by Jaime Munguia.
Charlo hasn’t gone out of his way to fight the cream of the crop at middleweight since moving up to the weight class in 2018.
Jermall’s opposition at 160:
- Juan Macias Montiel
- Dennis Hogan
- Brandon Adams
- Sergiy Derevyanchenko
- Jorge Sebastian Heiland
- Hugo Centeno Jr
Those were all tune-up level opponents in gimme fights, and Jermall should have already stepped up to a higher level opponent after four years in the 160-lb weight class. Showtime has been willing to televise these kinds of fights, which is disappointing.
