Jermell Charlo faces Canelo Alveraz in one of the more intriguing fights as Charlo, the junior Middleweight champion, faced the super Middleweight champion. My good friend David Martinez was talking upset, but I wasn’t sold that Charlo could beat Alvarez.
Canelo was the bigger fighter and had been fighting bigger fighters for a longer period of time and Charlo was moving two weights class not just one. Canelo had been one of the elite pounds for pound from Welterweight division and even campaigned as a light heavyweight.
What Canelo has going for him is his advantage at the higher weight, and he has excellent upper body movement and great power. Charlo has a high boxing IQ and good boxing skills. In his second fight with Brian Castano, he switched his strategy and stopped Castano. Charlo was capable of adjusting but to paraphrase Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a strategy until the first bell ring, and you get hit the first time.” Certainly, when Charlo started to feel the power of Alvarez, his strategy wasn’t going to work.
When Floyd Mayweather fought a young Canelo, he out boxed and out thought Alvarez and Alvarez seemed hesitant throughout the bout. He learned a lesson in fighting Mayweather, and one was to all his instinct and let loose his power. The Canelo that fought Charlo pressured Charlo and Charlo never fought a fighter with ferocity of Alvarez.
I thought that Charlo may win a few early rounds, but I anticipate that Canelo power and pressure will take hold for a late round stoppage.
The fight was one sided and my own score card was more one-sided than the official cards which were 119-108, 119-108, 118-109 whereas I had it 120-107, as the only round that could possibly been ruled in Charlo was the first round in which both fighters landed one punch in a slow round.
From that round, Canelo out landed Charlo every round and overall, he landed double the punches over Charlo, he out jabbed Charlo the boxer and more accurate with those jobs and landed more than double the power shots. Overall Canelo accuracy was double than that of Charlo and from the second round to the very end, this was a one-way fight in which the bigger Canelo proved too powerful for the junior Middleweight, Jermell Charlo. Charlo moved up two weight divisions and the difference was self-evident. Even in the first round saw Charlo retreat to the rope.
The second round saw Charlo start with two jabs, but Canelo jabbed back, and a right hand partially blocked by Charlo had an impact as Charlo retreated. Third and Fourth round saw Canelo out jabbing the boxer and his right hand pushed Charlo to retreat and by the end of the fourth round, Charlo body language didn’t look good as he looked perplexed. This pattern repeated itself as Charlo failed to impress Canelo with his own power but found himself retreating. Halfway through the fight, it was 60-54 for Canelo and CompuBox validate the one-sided nature of the fight as Canelo landed 62 punches to Charlo 29 and Canelo accuracy was 35 percent to Charlo 15 percent.
Charlo took a knee in the seventh round as he got staggered by Canelo’s right. He got back up quicky, but this fight was essentially over at this point. While the fight continued for the next five rounds and Charlo proved willing to take Canelo best for twelve rounds, he didn’t have the power to keep Canelo off him.
This was a case of a good smaller fighter unable to punish the bigger fighter enough and while Charlo lasted all twelve rounds, he did little to hurt Canelo Alvarez. Charlo options is going back to junior Middleweight or become a Middleweight and maybe his brother, Jermall Charlo will take up the Alvarez challenge, but Alvarez probably had his best fight since he defeated Caleb Plant for the unanimous control of the Super Middleweight and there are still fights to be made at Super Middleweight and maybe another shot at the light heavyweight. Two big fights will be Dmitry Bivol for Bivol’s light heavyweight championship and redeemed his previous loss and heavy hitting David Benavidez for the Super Middleweight championship. There is one fight we don’t need to see, Terrance Crawford versus Canelo Alvarez for a simple reason, he would suffer the same fate as Jermell Charlo but maybe a Crawford versus Charlo for the Junior Middleweight might be worth reviewing.
As for Canelo Alvarez being too old or slipping, not yet and while the talk was about the 33-year-old Alvarez losing a step, it should be noted that Jermell Charlo is also 33 years old. Maybe not as many bouts as Alvarez, he has his own wear and tear as well.
The Donelson Files 