By: Sean Crose
I’ve been waiting for this for a while. It looked like a rematch between Jermell Charlo and Brian Castano would take place earlier this year, but Castano’s injury pushed the fight back until this weekend. Now, however, the second battle between the two middleweight world champions is finally upon us – and not any time soon. These men first met last summer during a fight. “After a brilliant battle,” I wrote shortly after the battle, “Charlo-Castano was awarded a draw.” The draw and in itself isn’t a particularly bad thing. It’s not as if the battle has no end. What made the decision frustrating was that one of the judges gave Charlo an excessively high score, by six points. How someone managed to score that bout 117-111 in favor of either boxer remains a mystery.
However, that is all in the past. And tonight, at Carson California’s Dignity Health Sports Park, WBA, WBC and IBF champion Charlo and WBO champion Castano will once again fight for the undisputed young middleweight crown. If that sounds like a big deal, that’s because it is. Undisputed champions are too few and far between these days. Nobody wants a partial champion. Those are the undisputed champions required in a sport like boxing.
34-1-1 Charlo wants to clear things up tonight by eliminating Castano 17-0-2. Castano, on the other hand, can understand the lack of confidence in judgment at the moment (Who can blame him?). However, the man left little doubt ahead of the fight that he would let it all be in the ring on Saturday. None of the men have played against another opponent since their first match last July.
One thing fans should be grateful for is that Charlo-Castano 2 will be broadcast live on regular Showtimes. In a saturated pay-per-view combat world, it’s nice to have a high-level battle going on at no extra cost. Wars of this magnitude are less and less common outside of the pay-per-view world. Advertisers seem okay with bringing in less eyeballs as long as they can bring in more dollars. That’s not healthy for any sport, but it’s especially true for boxing, which is often thought of as being on a rope, even when it’s not.
