Canelo Alvarez will fight JermELL Charlo on Sept. 30 in Las Vegas in battle of undisputed champions

[Ledhed1]

By Kevin Iole, Yahoo Sports

Canelo Alvarez, the undisputed super middleweight champion, announced on June 22 he would return to defend his 168-pound belts in September, and speculation immediately arose that it would be against Jermall Charlo.

Alvarez will fight a Charlo, but rather than Jermall, he will face undisputed super welterweight champion Jermell Charlo, Jermall's twin brother, on Sept. 30 on Showtime Pay-Per-View in Las Vegas. The bout will most likely be at T-Mobile Arena, though no deal has been finalized for a venue.

Stephen Espinoza, Showtime's president of sports and event programming, said that though speculation was rampant that it would be Jermall fighting, Alvarez did not identify an opponent. It was determined Jermall wouldn't be prepared to fight in time.

"At the end of the day, everyone understands Jermall has been dealing with some personal issues and the feeling is he couldn't fully commit to a fight of this magnitude and be fully prepared and do all of the things he needed to do while balancing everything that is going on in his personal life," Espinoza said.

Jermall holds a WBC middleweight title, but hasn't fought since defeating Juan Macias Montiel on June 19, 2021, to raise his record to 32-0. He's fought a division ahead of his brother for a while and he was the natural one of the two to move up.

But with his personal issues making it difficult for him to compete, his brother was a near-perfect alternative. The only issue is size. Jermell fights at super welterweight, which has a limit of 154 pounds. Alvarez is now a super middleweight, with a limit of 168. And he briefly held a light heavyweight title, which has a limit of 175 pounds.

Espinoza, though, doesn't see the size disparity as that big of an issue.

"Not that long ago, both of them were at 154," Espinoza said. "And Jermell has been talking about going to 160 for a while. You understand that Jermell is a very big 154-pounder. It will be a challenge, but he's optimistic and believes he'll be able to do it."

Alvarez last fought at 154 on Sept. 17, 2016, when he stopped Liam Smith. Since then, he's fought 13 times, going 12-1. He was at middleweight three times, light heavyweight twice and at super middleweight for eight bouts. He was 1-1 at light heavyweight, stopped Sergey Kovalev, and dropped a decision to Dmitriy Bivol. He was 3-0 at middleweight, with two wins over Gennadiy Golovkin and one over Daniel Jacobs. At super middleweight, he's beaten Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Rocky Fielding, Callum Smith, Avni Yildirim, Billy Joe Saunders, Caleb Plant, Golovkin and John Ryder.

Charlo's last two fights were for the undisputed super welterweight title against Brian Castaño. They fought to a split draw on July 17, 2021, and Charlo won the rematch by 10th-round knockout on May 14, 2022.

Alvarez has fought on Mexican Independence Day weekend 10 times in his career, but the UFC has a show at T-Mobile that night. Espinoza doesn't think the new date of Sept. 30 will impact the pay-per-view's success.

"It would have been nice to have been on that weekend, but it's not as if Canelo loses his appeal if he fights on a different date," Espinoza said. "That's a traditional date for [star Mexican boxers], but Canelo is a brand and we've had success with him at different times. We did very well with him and Caleb Plant and that fight was in November."

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

What a mess. Jermell isn't exactly at the top of the list of 168 pound contenders Canelo should be fighting. Where's Benavidez? Morell? Both PBC fighters. What happened to Jermell-Tszyu at 154? Both Charlos have been out so long, they seem to be in cash-out mode. Wouldn't fancy either of them vs. Canelo at this point and wasn't fancying Jermell vs Tszyu anyway given Jermell's absence and Tszyu's sound decision to stay busy in the interim.

[LondonRingRules]

--- It's boxing these days with Haymon cashing out the Charlene Sistas who apparently can longer function in civilian life enough to carry on a career.

Benavidez the only Canelo fight I'd be interested, and with a 3 fight contract, I wouldn't begrudge him fighting Munguia to close out his career. He's accumulated too many rounds and basically going to turn to toast past this contract.

[WelshDevilRob]

Glad it's not Jermall, as he's been active for 2 years and had issues (bar related apparently). I've no real issue with the 154lber taking the fight, seems he can do middle easy enough.

Tim Tszyu is the one who has lost out, as he's been waiting for his shot at little Charlo.

[WelshDevilRob]

😁

[LondonRingRules]

--- This fight has Charlene Sistas run and stink all over it. Maybe Canelo was guaranteed the Floydy rematch in an exhibition.

[WelshDevilRob]

[LondonRingRules]

--- 3 weeks from now and still on with no reported injuries.

Hard to know how it plays out what with Canelo plodding foot speed exacerbated by knee injuries that have seen him on crutches after knee surgery.

The Charlene Sistas ain't exactly set the boxing world on fire, so is a run and stink fight plan being worked on?

[WelshDevilRob]

On 9/11/2023 at 4:03 PM, LondonRingRules said:

--- 3 weeks from now and still on with no reported injuries.

Hard to know how it plays out what with Canelo plodding foot speed exacerbated by knee injuries that have seen him on crutches after knee surgery.

The Charlene Sistas ain't exactly set the boxing world on fire, so is a run and stink fight plan being worked on?

Canelo is a bigger, better version of Castano. Jermell isn't as flighty as Billy Joe. Canelo seems to be recovered from injuries according to All Access - episode 1. Think Charlo struggles not being the frontrunner and gets stopped.