Jermall Charlo made a fourth successful defence of his WBC Middleweight title, as he pounded out a wide unanimous decision win against Juan Macias Montiel in the main event of a bill in his hometown at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas on Saturday.
Charlo (32-0, 22 KOs) won the interim WBC belt back in December 2018 against Matvey Korobov, but was then upgraded to full champion, and has made fairly low key defences since, seeking a big name on his ledger to enhance his reputation. Montiel (22-5-2, 22 KOs) was coming off an upset one round knockout win against James Kirkland, but never looked likely to pull off a shock win in this one.
It was only the bravery of Montiel that kept him in the contest here, and he was hurt several times as the champion pushed for an early night that never came.
The fifth was a particularly torrid round for the challenger, as he was battered from pillar to post, but he refused to buckle. One round later, the 27-year-old was in deep trouble again, with Charlo attacking mostly at will, but yet again he refused to go down.
The Mexican did have small successes of his own down the stretch, even opening a cut on the 31-year-old’s eye, but he never looked like he was going to have the decisive hail Mary shot in his arsenal to turn the fight around.
The bout eventually went to the cards, where scores of 120-108, 119-109 and 118-109 confirmed the title remained the property of the ‘Hitman’.
Charlo used his post fight interview to call out the big guns, namely IBF champion, Gennady Golovkin, and consensus pound-for-pound number one, Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.
“160 is my weight division,” said Charlo during his post-fight interview with SHOWTIME.
“I want to unify, I want to get Golovkin in the ring. I want to get Canelo out here to Houston.”
Leo edges Alameda
In the chief support, Angelo Leo squeezed past Aaron Alameda (25-2, 13 KOs) via majority decision in their ten rounder at Super Bantamweight.
One judge returned a 95-95 verdict, but he was overruled by scores of 96-94 and 98-92 in favour of former WBO champion Leo (21-1, 9 KOs), who will hope to secure a rematch with Stephen Fulton in the near future.
Gonzalez dominates Vargas
At Lightweight, Isaac Cruz Gonzalez (22-1-1, 15 KOs) took a ten round decision win over Francisco Vargas (27-3-2, 19 KOs).
Scores of 100-89, 99-90 and 97-92 reflected Gonzalez’s dominance in the fight.
