By Keith Idec
Knowing full well that he is in position to possibly challenge Gennady Golovkin for middleweight supremacy, Jermall Charlo paid particularly close attention to Golovkin’s difficult fight against Daniel Jacobs.
Charlo walked away impressed by Jacobs’ performance, but he doesn’t necessarily think Canelo Alvarez will have similar success against Golovkin when they meet September 16 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (HBO Pay-Per-View). Houston’s Charlo (25-0, 19 KOs) discussed the Golovkin-Jacobs bout while on a conference call to promote his July 29 fight against Argentina’s Sebastian Heiland (29-4-2, 16 KOs) at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
The winner of the Charlo-Heiland WBC middleweight elimination match will become the mandatory challenger for whoever wins between Kazakhstan’s Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) and Mexico’s Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs).
“GGG and Danny Jacobs was a great fight,” Charlo said. “Jacobs showed a lot of heart. He exploited Golovkin. … Danny Jacobs and GGG had a nice, hard fight. The fight showed where GGG got hit a lot more than we’ve probably seen him get hit. And Danny Jacobs exploited those mistakes that he was **. And I know Canelo is looking at that, and thinking he’s gonna go into the fight and do what Danny Jacobs did. But I feel like Danny is a better fighter.
“But look, I’m not focused on that right now. My main focus is to get to the next level, and all the pressure is on me to perform at the highest level that I’ve ever performed at right now. So I’m not necessarily focused on the winner out of the champions right now. I’m focused on the No. 1 spot, where they [can’t] avoid me.”
Showtime will broadcast Charlo-Heiland as the opener of 9 p.m. ET telecast that’ll feature Mikey Garcia (36-0, 30 KOs) and Adrien Broner (32-2, 24 KOs, 1 NC) in the 12-round, 140-pound main event.
2023-10-19 00:27:12
