Sergiy Derevyanchenko reportedly is frontrunner to face Jermall Charlo in next defense

Two-time title challenger Sergiy Derevyanchenko had been “in talks” to meet Canelo Alvarez on September 14th, but Eric Gomez’s recent comments to Yahoo Sports imply that Golden Boy is still in the “presenting options” stage of the Mexican superstar’s return. Luckily for “The Technician”, another chance for hardware has presented itself. Ronnie Shields, trainer of WBC not-franchise middleweight champion Jermall Charlo, tells Ray Flores that Derevyanchenko is the “frontrunner” for his charge’s next title defense.

I like this matchup a fair bit more than the Canelo fight, to be honest. Derevyanchenko (13-2, 10 KO) represents the toughest challenge of Charlo’s (30-0, 22 KO) 160-pound run, which has thus far lacked anywhere near the strength of schedule he underwent at 154. Since smashing Hugo Centeno Jr. for the interim belt in 2018, Charlo has barely scraped by late replacement Matt Korobov, cruised past Brandon Adams, and knocked out the undersized Dennis Hogan.

Not quite as laudable as Derevyanchenko’s mighty effort against Gennadiy Golovkin last October.

Despite the loss to “GGG”, Derevyanchenko remains the WBC #1 contender, so there shouldn’t be any difficulties from that front when trying to put this together.