Jermall Charlo likes Terence Crawford’s chances against Canelo Alvarez

Former junior middleweight and middleweight title holder Jermall Charlo got an extreme close-up of what it’s like to have a 154-pounder challenge undisputed 168-pound champion Canelo Alvarez when his twin brother Jermell stepped up to the plate on September 30, 2023, to face the Mexican star.

Jermell was the undisputed junior middleweight champion at the time and got the call instead because Jermall was unfit to fight at the time. Alvarez went on to drop Jermell and cruise to an easy unanimous decision win, losing just two rounds on two of the judges’ cards, and only one on the other.

Alvarez is taking on another 154-pounder in Terence Crawford when the pound-for-pound great and four-division titleholder moves up to 168 pounds for a September 13 superfight in Las Vegas on Netflix.

“I like Crawford in this fight. He’s staying big,” Jermall Charlo told The Ring and other media. “My brother fought Canelo, not me. My brother told me that it was his mistake that he made – he thought going up in weight meant getting massive and big to beat Canelo. It made him slower, and his reflexes slower. He’ll tell you himself. He didn’t feel like the Jermell Charlo y’all had seen him fight Tony Harrison. With Crawford, you want to get big to try and absorb Canelo’s punches, but technically, that’s not the Crawford we’re going to see. Crawford is not a 168-pounder and he’s going up. Where is the motivation? The money is good, but I don’t expect Crawford to be the same Crawford who was knocking out Yuriorkis Gamboa. I don’t expect that of Crawford. I don’t think Crawford should be jumping up in weight to fight him, but the opportunity presented itself.”

Jermall said he realizes Jermell followed the same road map but didn’t necessarily agree with it.

“I didn’t understand why,” said Jermall. “I wasn’t a fan of it. I didn’t like it. It was really hard [watching the fight]. It was one of the hardest things I had to do in my life, honestly. He landed shots and did what he did, but he didn’t get a chance to move, punch, and use his power and agility.”

As for Jermall, he returned last month for just his second fight in four years and easily stopped Thomas LaManna in a super middleweight contest.

Now ranked as the WBA’s No. 2 challenger at 168 pounds, the undefeated Charlo is angling to get an Alvarez fight that was once dangled in front of him.

“Look, I’m not trippin’ on the Canelo fight. If it happens, it happens, if it don’t, it don’t,” Charlo said after beating LaManna. “At 168, I wanna become a world champion at 168 for myself, my legacy, my kids. Other than that, I’m just lettin’ it flow. I just wanna be great and, you know, go down in history as one of the greats that ever did it.”