Jermell Charlo says he won’t be returning to the ring to defend his undisputed junior middleweight championship until the “end of the summer” after breaking two bones in his left hand last December while training for a title defense against Tim Tszyu.
It’s not three months since the injury, and Charlo (35-1-1, 19 KOs) feels he’s going to need until the end of the summer [September] before he makes his next defense. That’s another six months on top of the three months that have already gone by since Jermell suffered the injury.
Charlo didn’t mention who he’ll be facing next when he does return to the ring, but it was previously believed he would defend against his WBO mandatory Tim Tszyu (22-0, 16 KOs. However, considering that Charlo will be coming off a 16-month layoff since his last fight against former WBO 154-lb champion Brian Castano last May, it’s quite possible that he’ll insist on taking a tune-up rather than going straight into a risky fight against the hard-punching Tszyu.
We don’t even know for sure at this point if Charlo will be ready to go in September because he hasn’t started hitting the pads with his injured hand yet. There’s always a possibility that Charlo could suffer a set back and need more time on the shelf, healing his hand.
Tszyu has already captured the interim WBO 154-lb title, and the next move would be for him to be installed as the new champion if Charlo is going to need to sit on the sidelines for the remainder of 2023, licking his wounds. At that point, he would rival his twin brother Jermall in terms of inactivity without being stripped of his title.
“I got go back to find out, but I was in a cast for about 6-7 weeks, and I remember going back, and they put me back in a cast,” said Jermell Charlo to Showtime Sports.
“So finally I was able to get out the cast and start doing rehab, so gained, put the weight back on. Certain things when you’re in the cast, the flexibility [not there].
“I’ve got some time, but I’ll be back…by the end of the summer or so,” Charlo continued.
“[Tim Tszyu displayed no] lateral movement, no athleticism, it’s just a whole bunch of nonsense that happened in that fight that my coach is not going to allow,” Jermell said about Tszyu’s recent victory over Tony Harrison.
As you can see, Charlo wasn’t impressed with what he saw from Tszyu in his recent knockout of Harrison.
