Despite the anticipation of fans and the predictions of boxing critics, it was a one-sided title fight. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez defended his undisputed champion against Jermell Charlo in a super middleweight title fight on Saturday September 30th at the T-Mobile arena, in Las Vegas.
Charlo is the undisputed junior middleweight champion making his fight with the undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo the first time he’s fought over 154 pounds causing him to move up 14 pounds for the fight which was at 168. leading up to this fight Canelo was 59-2-2, with 30 KOs coming off a win against John Ryder and Charlo was 35-1-1, with 19 KOs coming off a knockout win against Brian Castano. Canelo is 5’8 with a reach of 70.5 inches while Charlo is 6 feet with a reach of 73 inches both fighters are 33 years old.
Canelo ended up successfully retaining his undisputed champion beating Charlo by Unanimous decision being scored 119-108 and 118-109 by both judges. Canelo outlanded Charlo in punches by 134 to 71 landing 35% of his punches and 40% of his power shots while also winning the advantage in body shots 42 to 11. Jermell Charlo didn’t stand a chance as he was knocked down in the 7th round by Canelo and only won one round, the 12th. His statistics show that Charlo only landed 18% of his punches and 27% of his power shots.
| ROUND | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alvarez | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 119 |
| Charlo | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 108 |
Canelo vs Charlo final Scorecard
“You could feel the difference in weight because I came up 12 pounds. I was daring to be great today. I took the shots and just kept pushing.” said Jermell Charlo after the fight. Charlo now has a record of 35-2-1 after his super middleweight fight against Canelo led to a defeat while Canelo won and retained his undisputed champion with his new record being 60-2-2. Charlo will move back down to 154 where he is the undisputed champion of the weight class despite the loss.
“Cinco de Mayo [weekend],” Alvarez said in his post-fight interview with ESPN. “Whoever, I don’t care. I don’t [really] care,” said Canelo in his post-fight interview. Speculation from fight fans caused many names to be brought up such as David Benavidez and Dmitry Bivol as possible next opponents for Canelo.
This victory was the first of Canelo’s three-fight deal with PBC, but it was originally supposed to be against Jermell Charlo’s twin brother, Jermall, the WBC middleweight titleholder. Jermall Charlo didn’t take the planned fight as he dealt with a personal matter, and Canelo quickly accepted Jermell Charlo as the new opponent. This fight was also Charlo’s first since May 2022, when he scored a knockout in the 10th round against Brian Castano in a rematch to win the undisputed junior middleweight championship. Many people have said that Charlo’s defeat was because of ring rust since his last fight was in May, 2022.
Iker Justiniano, Sophmore at Morton West High School said, “It was a Canelo masterclass and he just kept picking at him and was destroying the fight since the start. Charlo never stood a chance to begin with and it was shown within this boring fight. But the fight was overall boring in which Canelo did Canelo things.” He reacted this way after watching Canelo Alvarez destroy Jermell Charlo on the fight.
Victor Romero, a Senior at Morton West High School said, ” I went for Canelo, I thought it was a good fight Canelo’s defense and offense was good while Charlo was kind of scared and pushing back a lot. It also looked like Charlo was gassed by the end of the fight.”
“…I could fight Terence Crawford,” Charlo said to ESPN after the fight. “Let him fight Errol Spence and get that out of the way. I’m waiting.” said Jermell The message was clear: Charlo was directly calling out number 1 ranked PFP fighter Terrence Crawford in his post-fight interview. Before Charlo could fight Crawford, Crawford needs to fight Errol Spence Jr. in a rematch after his dominating win against Spence. The odds were stacked against Charlo as he has never fought over his 154-pound weight class making Canelo the first four-belt undisputed champion to defend his titles three times.
