NEW YORK – Jermall Charlo doesn’t interact nearly as much on social media these days as he once did.
The WBC middleweight champion became so disgusted by all the nasty, negative feedback he had received, Charlo decided it’d be better to channel that additional time and energy toward his boxing career, his business interests outside the ring and his family. Charlo doesn’t want to keep calling out Canelo Alvarez, Gennadiy Golovkin or any other elite middleweight, either, because he doesn’t want to appear as though he is “thirsting” for a fight.
Reporters and videographers kept asking him, however, thus the unbeaten Houston native reiterated that he is far from satisfied with boxing the likes of Jorge Heiland, Hugo Centeno Jr., Matt Korobov, Brandon Adams and Dennis Hogan.
Charlo, 29, has beaten those first four opponents since moving up to the middleweight division. The former IBF junior middleweight champ will defend his title versus the Irish-born Hogan in his next fight, December 7 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn (Showtime).
“Of course I wanna fight Canelo,” Charlo said following a press conference last week in Manhattan. “Of course I wanna fight Golovkin. Of course, I wanna fight [Daniel] Jacobs. He’s a top fighter. He lost to both of them. You know what I mean? [They’ll say], ‘You got Canelo leftovers.’ All right, so give me Canelo then? Or give me god damn Golovkin or another champion. I just wanna fight another champion. Then you can tell me whatever you wanna tell me after.”
Charlo (29-0, 21 KOs) was the mandatory challenger for Alvarez’s WBC middleweight title. The Mexican icon instead moved up to light heavyweight, the division within which he’ll challenge WBO 175-pound champion Sergey Kovalev on November 2 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
The WBC elevated Alvarez to the unprecedented status of franchise champion. It also declared Charlo, who was the WBC’s interim middleweight champ, its world middleweight champ.
Landing the types of high-profile fights he wants could require Charlo to fight on DAZN.
He has fought exclusively on Showtime and FOX in recent years, but Alvarez (52-1-2, 35 KOs) and Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs) have long-term, nine-figure contracts with that fledgling streaming service.
Alvarez also might not return to the middleweight division, depending on how he fares versus Kovalev (34-3-1, 29 KOs). Golovkin still wants that third fight against Alvarez over any other middleweight match, and there is public demand for a rematch with Sergiy Derevyanchenko (13-2, 10 KOs).
Demetrius Andrade (28-0, 17 KOs), the WBO middleweight champion, also has had his past three bouts streamed by DAZN. Like Golovkin, the IBF/IBO champ, a fight against Andrade would afford Charlo an opportunity to own more than one middleweight title.
Meanwhile, Charlo will make the second defense of the WBC world middleweight title against Hogan. He already has endured a lot of criticism for agreeing to defend his title against Hogan (28-2-1, 7 KOs), who dropped a debatable majority decision to WBO junior middleweight champ Jaime Munguia (34-0, 27 KOs) in his last fight, April 13 in Monterrey, Mexico.
“The ultimate goal is just to fight, honestly, to get more active,” Charlo said. “I actually wanna have three fights in 2020. These two little slow-paced fights, it’s not really working because it’s giving these fighters out here a little bit of leverage, and it’s making them feel like, ‘Charlo’s not fighting nobody. He keep picking these guys.’ No, it’s not me. I don’t pick my fights. I’m in control of my promotional [company], but I’m not in control of the opponents that step up and the opponents that will accept a fight with Jermall Charlo.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.