Jermell Charlo and Tony Harrison talked trash as well as any duo that I can think of in recent years in the leadup to their junior middleweight world title rematch Saturday night.
Even after Charlo prevailed by 11th-round knockout to regain the 154-pound belt, their emotions were still raw.
Despite their very personal words during the buildup, Charlo went over to Harrison’s corner after the fight to shake his hand. Harrison said before the bout he had no respect for Charlo and didn’t know if he would shake his hand afterward. He did so, however grudgingly, and told him “good fight.”
“I’m a gentleman at the end of the day. I got a family to feed and so does he. I was victorious. May the best man win,” Charlo said. “So I showed my respect as good sportsmanship, but at the end of the day I don’t like the dude. Period.”
Now they are 1-1 after a pair of compelling fights. For my money, a tiebreaking trilogy bout is a natural, especially if Charlo can’t land a unification bout with the winner of the upcoming fight between unified titlist Julian “J Rock” Williams and Jeison Rosario, who meet on Jan. 18 in Williams’ hometown of Philadelphia.
Charlo versus the Williams-Rosario winner should be relatively easy to make if the fighters want it, because they are with PBC. Still, I’d like to see Charlo-Harrison III.
“He can get it again, but I’m off to bigger and better things,” Charlo said. “I’m down for making history. He held the title too long and I had to come back and get it.”
At the time of the stoppage, Charlo led 96-93 on two scorecards and Harrison was up 95-94 on the third. Knockdowns aside, it was a very close, competitive fight. In terms of the CompuBox statistics, Charlo landed 127 punches, Harrison 121. They were within two landed punches of each other in eight of the 11 rounds. It was that close.
“I wanted to score the knockout [because of] all the s— he was talking, everything he was saying,” Charlo said.
Harrison would like a tiebreaker, and by most any measure, he deserves it.
“It’s 1-1. Hopefully, we do it again,” he said. “Got to go back to the drawing board, tighten a few things up.”
When they both appeared together at the post-fight news conference, they shared another handshake and even a hug.
“Despite all the s— talk, he’s a funny dude,” Charlo said. “I started enjoying the s— just listening to Tony. He’s crazy. We all crazy. I respect any man that gets in the ring.”
Charlo said he would prefer a unification fight in 2020, but also said he was open to a third fight with Harrison and that “we could take it to pay-per-view.”
Detroit’s Harrison (28-3, 21 KOs), 29, said there is still ill will between them, another reason a third fight makes sense.
“It’s not water under the bridge,” he said of the bad feelings. “I would love to do it one more time.”
But he did give Charlo (33-1, 17 KOs), 29, of Houston, credit for winning.
“You can’t be lax for one second of one round and that’s what happened. I got lax for one second of one round,” Harrison said. “He hooked, I hooked. His s— was a little shorter. I didn’t see it and it just kind of knocked me off balance. It kind of stunned me a little bit. I pushed Jack Reiss off. I didn’t want him to stop it. I’d rather go out a little harder than that but Jack’s a championship referee, man. I made sure the m—– f—– earned it. I wanted this one bad. He earned it. Ain’t nothing I can say. He earned it. Nothing else to say.”
Except for this: Let’s see part 3.
Jacobs, Chavez going in opposite directions
It should have come as no surprise that former two-time middleweight world titlist Daniel Jacobs (36-3, 30 KOs) made the overweight, mentally weak Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (51-4-1, 33 KOs) quit after the fifth round Friday night in Phoenix, where Chavez came in to cheers but left with fans pelting him with beer and garbage for quitting for the second time in his career.
Chavez has been coddled forever because his father, Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., is a legend and fans seemingly support him because of their love for his dad. How much longer that goes on remains to be seen following Chavez’s latest disgraceful night. He refused a drug test and was temporarily suspended by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, so Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn moved the fight from Las Vegas to Phoenix. Chavez had to sue Nevada to get his suspension lifted and won, but instead of taking advantage of another chance, he badly blew weight once again; he was almost 5 pounds over the 168-pound contract limit and had to give up $1 million to Jacobs for his trouble.
He fought well for two rounds before tiring and quitting after the fifth round. He said it was from a broken nose caused by phantom fouls and then had the audacity to laughably ask for a rematch. He should retire and get his life together.
Jacobs, making his super middleweight debut, took a couple of rounds to get into the fight and then dominated, rebounding from a May loss to Canelo Alvarez in their middleweight title unification fight. Jacobs can now look forward to something much more meaningful than a Chavez fight. He named top opponents at both middleweight and super middleweight as potential targets.
“I want to fight the biggest in the division. I want [unbeaten middleweight titlist] Jermall Charlo and GGG again,” said Jacobs, in reference to a potential rematch with titlist Gennadiy Golovkin. “There’s [super middleweight titlist] Billy Joe Saunders and a lot of other champions.”
Fights with GGG, Saunders or even super middleweight titlist Callum Smith all are makeable since, like Jacobs, they fight on DAZN. Charlo, who fights under the Premier Boxing Champions umbrella, would also be a major fight, but Hearn has offered him millions to no avail to this point.
Prospect of the weekend: Daniel Dubois
British heavyweight Daniel Dubois (14-0, 13 KOs), 22, continues to impress. Fighting Saturday in the Copper Box Arena in London, he destroyed Kyotaro Fujimoto (21-2, 13 KOs), 33, who was fighting outside of his native Japan for the first time.
Dubois is one of the best, if not the best, heavyweight prospects in the world. He has youth, size (6-foot-4, 240 pounds), tremendous power and agility for such a big man, and he’s gaining valuable experience. He notched his fifth win of 2019 — all by knockout inside five rounds against a solid level of opposition, including then-unbeaten Nathan Gorman and former title challenger Razvan Cojanu.
Dubois took out Fujimoto impressively in the second round. He floored him with a stiff jab and then knocked him out with a mammoth right hand on the chin. Referee Victor Loughlin had no reason to count and immediately waved it off at 2 minutes, 10 seconds.
The next step: Dubois is ready to raise his competition level. Promoter Frank Warren said he’ll be back in April and there’s a chance he could meet countryman Joe Joyce, who was ringside on Saturday, in a pairing of unbeaten prospects. That would be a very interesting fight, and both camps say they’re interested. Dubois also said he’d love a crack at interim titlist Dillian Whyte, but that is probably more wishful thinking than a realistic outcome, at least in 2020.
Fights you might have missed
Saturday at London: Middleweight Liam Williams (22-2-1, 17 KOs) TKO5 Alantez Fox (26-2-1, 12 KOs), title eliminator.
Williams, 27, of England, notched his biggest win in impressive fashion to move a step closer to a mandatory shot at world titlist Demetrius Andrade. Williams, who faced a six-inch height disadvantage against the enormous 6-foot-4 Fox, dominated as he ended Fox’s three-fight winning streak, dating back to Fox’s decision loss to Andrade in a in 2017 non-title bout. Williams dropped Fox, 27, of Forestville, Maryland, to all fours with a right hand in the one-sided fourth round. Referee Steve Gray docked Fox one point for holding in the fifth round, and when Williams dropped Fox again with an onslaught of shots, Gray stopped it at 2 minutes, 59 seconds.
Saturday at Ontario, California: Light heavyweight Andre Dirrell (27-3, 17 KOs) TKO5 Juan Ubaldo Cabrera (24-3, 16 KOs).
Former longtime super middleweight contender Dirrell, 36, a southpaw from Flint, Michigan, had not fought since taking a shellacking in an eighth-round knockout loss to Jose Uzcategui in an interim super middleweight title rematch in March 2018. But the 2004 U.S. Olympic bronze medalist returned from 21 months out of the ring and pounded out Cabrera, 40, of the Dominican Republic, who was boxing for the first time in 19 months. Dirrell dropped Cabrera in the third and fifth rounds before Cabrera’s corner threw in the towel in the fifth round. Referee Jerry Cantu waved it off at 1 minute, 36 seconds.
Saturday at Rosario, Argentina: Bantamweight Pablo Gomez (12-10-2, 1 KO) W10 Omar Narvaez (49-4-2, 25 KOs), scores: 97-93, 96-94 Gomez, 96-94 Narvaez.
In a major upset, Gomez, 28, a journeyman from Argentina, claimed a split decision over countryman Narvaez, 44, who even at 44 was favored to win handily. Narvaez is a former longtime world titlist at flyweight (2002-09) and junior flyweight (2010-14) whose only previous losses came by decision to Nonito Donaire, Naoya Inoue and Zolani Tete in world title bouts. But in losing in Argentina for the first time, Narvaez showed that Father Time remains undefeated. This could be the end of the road for him.
Saturday at Krasnoyarsk, Russia: Cruiserweight Thabiso Mchunu (22-5, 13 KOs) W12 Denis Lebedev (32-3, 23 KOs), scores: 120-107, 119-108, 115-112.
Former cruiserweight world titlist Lebedev, 40, of Russia, announced his retirement in July. But his hiatus lasted just a few months before he unretired to fight fellow southpaw Mchunu, 31, of South Africa, for a regional title. Lebedev claimed he had to lose nearly 30 pounds during training for the bout, and it showed. Lebedev, who announced after the fight he would re-retire, was rusty in the one-sided decision loss to Mchunu, a longtime fringe contender who won his third fight in a row.