Jermell Charlo says a win over Canelo Alvarez on September 300th will put him on a “pinnacle” where boxing fans won’t be able to stop talking about him.
Of course, that depends on how Charlo (35-1-1, 19 KOs) beats Canelo (59-2-2, 39 KOs) and what he does after with his career. Ideally, Canelo will fight Jermell in an immediate rematch, but you can’t count on that happening.
Dmitry Bivol beat Canelo last year, and boxing fans have stopped talking about him because he’s done nothing with his career besides beating Gilberto Ramirez.
It didn’t help that Canelo chose not to try and avenge the loss, and Bivol has been blocked from getting a fight with Artur Beterbiev.
If Jermell beats Canelo on September 30th, he may need to fight one of the other top super middleweights like David Benavidez or move back down to 154 for a title defense against Terence Crawford if Alvarez chooses not to try and avenge the loss as he did with Bivol.
“I’ve got a fight that will put me on a pinnacle where people can’t stop talking about me,” said Jermell Charlo to the media during today’s press tour in Los Angeles for his fight against Canelo Alvarez on September 30th.
It would be wise for Jermell to map out ahead of time where he wants to go after beating Canelo because there’s a good chance the Mexican star will avoid the rematch and come up with a good reason for why he’s doing so, like an injury or someone else that he must fight first.
Canelo did that with Bivol. Just had to fight 41-year-old Gennadiy Golovkin because it was ‘now or never.’ Then once that fight was done, Canelo bypassed the rematch again with Bivol, saying he had a hand injury.
Once it was healed, he had to take a tune-up against John Ryder. Then when that was done, Canelo chose not to fight Bivol because he wanted to come down to 168 to fight him for his four belts, which he had no interest in putting on the line because he didn’t want to be criticized for dragging him down in weight.
“I still got to work and train hard, and the weight is going to come off like nothing,” said Jermell. “Texas don’t have the love like we should get like Canelo has this big crazy crowd of Mexican fans, and it’s a whole country.
“Texas is Texas. You’ve got to be really on top. You got to be dominant, you got to be the one to win, and you get that. It’s not a small town. It’s a big [state]. So to get that love that you want to get in Texas, you’ve got to do what I got to do on the 30th.
“It might be Sugar Ray Leonard-Duran type of thing. We’ll see. You can’t put it in the judges’ hands. You’ve got to be calm & nice & cool with everybody so that you don’t p*** off the judges too. It’s all about that; It’s a political thing.
“Of course, it’ll help me a little bit. That’s what they’re going to be watching. I’m pretty sure they’re going to be watching the Castano fight. They’re going to watch all the fights,” said Jermell about Canelo & his team studying his past fights.
