NEW YORK – Jermall Charlo and Demetrius Andrade both would prefer to challenge Canelo Alvarez or Gennadiy Golovkin.
Those higher-profile fights obviously would pay Charlo and Andrade more money than if they were to face one another. Neither fighter appears any closer to landing middleweight title unification fights versus Alvarez or Golovkin, though, which should make their own 160-pound championship showdown appealing to those unbeaten champions.
An Andrade-Charlo clash at least would offer the 31-year-old Andrade and the 29-year-old Charlo an opportunity to unify middleweight titles.
Charlo’s schedule is open after knocking out Ireland’s Dennis Hogan (28-3-1, 7 KOs) in the seventh round Saturday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Andrade, of Providence, Rhode Island, is expected to make a voluntary defense of his WBO title against Ireland’s Luke Keeler (17-2-1, 5 KOs) in his next fight, tentatively scheduled for January 30 in Miami.
“I’m here to fight whoever,” Charlo said during a post-fight press conference early Sunday morning. “I will fight Demetrius Andrade any given day. If that’s what it take to get to the next level, I wanna fight the biggest and the baddest out there.”
Andrade (28-0, 17 KOs) has expressed interest in challenging Charlo (30-0, 22 KOs), who holds the WBC 160-pound crown.
Houston’s Charlo has taken notice of what Andrade has said about boxing him. Charlo considers it bluster, however, because Andrade is affiliated with DAZN and Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing USA, whereas Charlo is committed to Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions, which has broadcast contracts with FOX and Showtime.
DAZN has streamed Andrade’s past three fights.
“Look, Demetrius Andrade, I like his campaign,” Charlo said. “Great fighter. Now he’s chasing. You know what I mean? He got a chance to fight my twin brother [Jermell, in December 2014] and he canceled the opportunity. That was back in the [day]. Look, he’s hiding behind a network right now. I’m not. I’m Lions Only Promotions. It’s all over the ring. Come on, man. We not going nowhere. We not scared of nobody. This what we do, bro. We fight, bro. We fight for a living. This what I do to feed my family, man.
“When you saying like, ‘Not gonna fight somebody,’ man, if he wanna fight, we gonna make the fight happen. You know what I mean? A side, B side, C side, I don’t give a f*ck about none of that. We gonna make the fight happen. Demetrius Andrade wanna fight, he can get that work, too. He know how to get over here [to PBC, Showtime and FOX]. Just like he went over there to DAZN, he know how to get his ass back over here.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.