Jermall Charlo: I’ll fight Canelo whenever, in any division

Canelo Alvarez has his plate full right now with Saturday’s bout against Rocky Fielding, but interim WBC middleweight titleholder (and Alvarez’s 160-pound mandatory challenger) Jermall Charlo is keeping a close eye on things, and says he’s ready to go after Canelo at any weight, any time.

From Sky:

“The mandatory means nothing in boxing anymore, so I have to take a different route. ... He’s challenging at 168 pounds, another division that’s in my near future, and if Canelo chooses to campaign there, I will chase him up to 168 pounds and I can fight him there, too. I’m bigger than him and better than him, it’s just I don’t have as many fights as he’s had, but that means nothing. I am ready to fight him whenever. In any division, in every division.”

Charlo (27-0, 21 KO) is slated to return on Dec. 22 against Willie Monroe Jr (23-3, 6 KO), a two-time title challenger who came up short against both Gennady Golovkin and Billy Joe Saunders.

As for Alvarez, it’s known that Golden Boy has a hold on T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for May 4, which surprised nobody. There’s been talk of him facing Golovkin again on that date, and Daniel Jacobs has already made his call-out, too.

We expect that David Lemieux and Demetrius Andrade, both middleweights associated with DAZN, are also in the mix for that date, if Canelo does return to 160 post-Fielding as anticipated.

Which leads us to the big, glaring problem that Charlo is going to have landing a fight with Alvarez any time soon: Canelo is signed with DAZN for 11 fights. Charlo is a Haymon/PBC fighter, thus his home bases for broadcasts are FOX (where he’ll fight Monroe next week) and Showtime.

Maybe PBC will sign off on Charlo appearing on DAZN to fight Canelo, but maybe not — and the “maybe not” would be somewhat understandable, since DAZN would certainly not even consider letting their $365 million man Canelo fight on FOX or Showtime.

And it sucks for fight fans, as usual, because Canelo-Charlo absolutely would be a terrific matchup and a potentially great fight. Charlo is as deserving of a shot at Canelo as anyone else, really.

There’s a chance it could happen — Al Haymon and PBC have not been proven to be completely inflexible with stuff like this before. I’m just saying this is probably the biggest uphill battle of anything facing Charlo, as far as getting that fight with Alvarez.

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To stream Canelo vs Rocky, sign up for DAZN and get one month free!