Coach Bob Santos still believes in Jermell Charlo despite his poor showing against Canelo Alvarez last month in his one-sided twelve round decision defeat on September 30th.
Santos still thinks the 33-year-old Jermell (35-2-1, 19 KOs) is a “tremendous talent”, and just bit off more than he could chew by going up to 168 to fight undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo (60-2-2, 39 KOs) in his first fight without getting his feet wet first.
The problem is the only guys who would have helped Jermell prepare for a fighter as gifted as Canelo are contenders who would likely have beaten him even worse.
We’re talking about David Benavidez, David Morrell Jr., Demetrius Andrade & Diego Pacheco.Those are the only talented fighters who are good enough to prepare Jermell for a fighter like Canelo, and they’d likely beat Jermell.
If Jermell’s main focus was just to get a payday, it probably wouldn’t have helped him to get a couple of fights under his belt before fighting Canelo because he’d lose them just as badly.
“Maybe he jumped up too much, too soon. He’s a talented fighter and could have benefitted from a fight at 168 to get his bearings,” said Bob Santos to ProBox TV about Jermell Charlo.
It would be useless for Jermell to have gotten tune-up fights first at 168 because he’s not a good enough fighter, and never will be. The fact is, Jermell is a wornout 15-year pro, who is at the end of his career.
Jermell announced at the post-fight press conference that he’s not interested in recapturing his WBO 154-lb belt against the winner of this Saturday’s fight between Tim Tszyu & Brian Mendoza.
Instead of fighting them, Jermell said he only wants the lucrative fights for the remainder of his career, which code for, ‘I want Terence Crawford and then I’m retiring.’
The big payday that Jermell got for the Canelo fight, estimated to be $20 million, has taken away his desire to return to the smaller money fights that he’d been getting before he was blessed by the Mexican star.
It’s kind of jarring going from getting $20 million to return to getting $2 million against a young lion like Tszyu or Mendoza, who will be looking to take Jermell’s head off.
“Canelo is an all-time great and extremely dangerous if he’s healthy,” said Santos. “Weight classes play a particular role. Canelo has established himself at that weight.”
Jermell didn’t look because of him fighting out of his weight class. It was more of a case of him being an average champion-level higher, who had been beaten by lesser fighters like Brian Castano & Tony Harrison. Those guys showed the level Jermell is at.
“I don’t know what went into his head when he got hit, if he thought, ‘it’s too much for me,’ I don’t know if it was the moment,” said Castano.
