by David P. Greisman

Jermall Charlo’s biggest win at junior middleweight was also his last one — the 154-pound titleholder is following his stoppage victory over Julian Williams by moving up to the middleweight division.

He won’t just jump straight in with the best 160-pounders out there.

“Now he has to become a contender up there. He has to fight his way up the same way he did at 154,” said Ronnie Shields, Charlo’s trainer, in an interview with BoxingScene.com. “I am not in a rush. Jermall is a young guy. It’s not like he’s an old guy where you’ve got to rush him into something.”

Many of the top middleweights are otherwise occupied in the first half of 2017 anyway. Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs will fight in March. Canelo Alvarez is in negotiations to face Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in a catch-weight fight in May. Billy Joe Saunders doesn’t have anything lined up yet.

Even if Charlo’s not starting at the top of the totem pole, he shouldn’t be going too far down in quality either, Shields said.

“I don’t want to see him fight nobodies,” Shields said. “He’s going to fight guys and get into contention right away. But at the same time, I don’t want to put him in with GGG right now. He has to get a feel of the division first and see where we go from there. I really haven’t started looking yet. I am looking at guys in the top 15 in the world. We’ll be looking at guys like that to see where we are.”

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