Junior middle matchmaking madness: The top 15 fights to make at 154

As they say, life comes at you fast. For almost the entirety of 2022 and 2023, the fight to make for the 154-pound championship was Jermell Charlo vs. Tim Tszyu. Now you can get about six or seven names deep listing the top guys in the division before you think to mention either Tszyu or Charlo.

There’s nothing quite like a major upset at the top of a division to shake up the whole weight class, and yes, Tszyu’s loss Saturday night to Bakhram Murtazaliev was a major upset — even if there were a handful of people who’d studied Murtazaliev and saw some version of the upset coming. Tszyu, as it turns out, has no idea how to defend against a quick, hard left hook. Murtazaliev, as it turns out, is something of a bad-ass.

With Murtazaliev added to the mix, and with Tszyu not necessarily removed from the mix just yet, junior middleweight is, for my money, suddenly the second-deepest division in the sport, behind only lightweight. Among its players: Terence Crawford, Murtazaliev, Sebastian Fundora, Vergil Ortiz Jr., Serhii Bohachuk, Israil Madrimov, Charlo, Tszyu, Errol Spence, and Erickson Lubin. Plus the top welterweight in the world, Jaron “Boots” Ennis, could potentially join the fun at any time. And that’s to say nothing of undefeated 154-pound prospects Xander Zayas, Yoenis Tellez, and Charles Conwell and once-beaten Jesus Ramos Jr.

If you’re a matchmaker connected to one or more of these fighters, you pretty much can’t go wrong pairing them with any others among this group. There are probably 50 different combinations I’d pay to see right now. Here are my top 15:

1) Crawford vs. Ennis: OK, my top choice involves the one non-junior-middleweight among the names listed above. But it’s a fight I’m dying to see between two men with pound-for-pound-level abilities (one who’s proven it, one who’s strongly hinted at it), and the window to make it won’t be open forever. Crawford just turned 37. Ennis is 27 and in danger of wasting away. Is Crawford still the king? Does Boots have next? Whether the torch gets passed directly or the defiant old man slams the door in the young whippersnapper’s face, boxing fans win when they get answers rather than a lifetime of speculation.

2) Crawford vs. Murtazaliev: Accuse me of recency bias if you must, but Murtazaliev is the beast of the moment, and I love the idea of the consummate proven pro in Crawford defending his domain against the big, scary Russian. Put it in Moscow on Christmas Day if you want. In all seriousness, Crawford had a close shave against Madrimov last time out, and there’s concern that he’s undersized at 154 and/or starting to grapple with aging. Murtazaliev is a fine stand-in for Madrimov (albeit with a completely different style) to tell us if those concerns are legit.

3) Ennis vs. Ortiz: I promise, this is the last time I’ll insert a welterweight into these junior middleweight rankings. But Boots vs. Vergil has been the theoretical fight for the future of this weight range for about the last five years. And, as much as we may complain about fighters protecting their zeroes and undefeated records being overrated, it would be pretty cool if these two could meet before one of them gets bumped off by somebody else.

4) Murtazaliev vs. Madrimov: I’ll admit, I wasn’t overly familiar with either of these fighters three months ago. Nor should I have been; neither man had faced a championship-level fighter yet. Now they have, and Madrimov gave Crawford all he could handle tactically and Murtazaliev practically knocked Tszyu’s jaw off its hinges. These are two warriors from the same region with very different approaches but who may well be a dead-even matchup. And at the very least, we’ll all have a good laugh at the expense of whatever poor commentators get this assignment and fumble their way to saying “Murtrimov” and “Madaliev” and “Murmadrizalioviev” and so forth.

5) Murtazaliev vs. Ortiz: We were denied the mouth-watering Ortiz vs. Tszyu fight that briefly appeared on the schedule for August. So how about Ortiz against the guy who just beat Tszyu instead? Combined record: 45-0 with 38 KOs. Both fighters come forward, both fighters can take charge of a bout with one punch, and, though they’re each plenty skilled, neither seems overly preoccupied with defense — at least not at the expense of offense. 

6) Crawford vs. Ortiz: Instead of the combined 45-0 with 38 KOs referenced in the previous paragraph, here we’re talking a combined 63-0 with 52 KOs. This is Boots vs. Bud, Lite (if, like me, you consider Ennis a slightly higher-upside talent than Ortiz), two American fighters from separate generations meeting at the crossroads. What’s midway between Omaha and Dallas? Wichita, Kansas. Let’s do it outdoors in the spring at Riverfront Stadium, home of the Wichita Wind Surge of baseball’s Texas League. Guaranteed sellout.

7) Fundora vs. Tszyu II: Their first fight straddled the line between the action genre and the horror genre and clearly warranted a rematch, but it was never going to be immediate because they both needed time to heal up. Seven months have now passed, and there’s still no chance of immediacy, with Fundora planning on something of the “onward and upward” variety and Tszyu requiring a bit of a restart after losing again. Whenever it makes sense to happen a second time, the question will remain: Did Fundora only win the first fight because Tszyu’s cranium sprung a leak? There’s unfinished business, and for fight fans, the business was booming the first time around.

8) Tszyu vs. Spence: The Murtazaliev fight has left us asking if Tszyu is suddenly on the downside. If there’s one top junior middleweight with more uncertainty on that front than Tszyu, it’s Spence. The former pound-for-pounder has been out of the ring since July ’23, and is possibly plotting a return against Fundora. That’s a fine fight if it happens (although just outside my list of the 15 that I desire most). But Spence-Tszyu now has appeal as a loser-leaves-town type of match. A get-well tune-up next is probably the wisest course of action for both of them, but after that, I wouldn’t mind seeing this as an elite matchup in division’s loser’s bracket.

9) Bohachuk vs. Madrimov: This is the only fight in the top 15 that’s actually on the schedule. It’s the co-feature on Dec. 21 in Saudi Arabia to the Oleksandr Usyk-Tyson Fury heavyweight championship rematch. And who doesn’t love a little top-flight Ukrainian-on-Uzbek action? Both are coming off disputed losses — not quite “controversial,” but close enough to make the case — to elite American 154-pounders on U.S. soil. Bohachuk dropped a majority decision to Ortiz by two points on two cards. Madrimov lost a unanimous decision to Crawford by two points on two cards. Whoever wins in Riyadh in December deserves another shot at the big time.

10) Ortiz vs. Fundora: We tend not to think of Fundora in the same “elite prospect” category into which Ortiz and Ennis fall, but he and Ortiz are the same age — 26 — so until Boots moves up, this is the best possible pairing of young American junior middles. More importantly, I just don’t see how a single second of this fight could be boring. I suppose there’s a chance it’s over quickly, since Ortiz is a vicious body-puncher and Fundora is basically 6½ feet of walking exposed rib. But even if it proves brief, it won’t be dull.

11) Charlo vs. Spence: It’s a bit unusual that we got outside my top 10 before working the lineal 154-pound champ into a matchup, but Charlo is an odd case. He’s been out of the ring for 13 months and last fought at junior middleweight nearly 2½ years ago, so he’s not quite top of mind. But he is, technically, still the man who beat the man here, having unified all the belts against Brian Castano and never lost them (nor defended them collectively, for that matter) in the ring. Anyway, Charlo insists he’s still active and insists he still wants to fight at 154, and I don’t see how you could go wrong by pairing him with Spence in an all-Texas meeting of star veterans with rust to remove.

12) Murtazaliev vs. Bohachuk: We have to complete the former-Soviet-Union round robin. And whereas Madrimov inserts some herky-jerky trickster elements into his fights, Bohachuk vs. Murtazaliev is more of a can’t-miss from an action perspective. Stylistic subtleties have their place. But two dudes cracking each other’s chin — skillfully, mind you — is a timeless art.

13) Charlo vs. Tszyu: Just because a lot has changed in the last two years, and most of it for the worse for these fighters, that doesn’t mean this wouldn’t still be a first-rate fight. And it would still feature the lineal champ (just not against his top contender, as once would have been the case). As with all things Tim Tszyu right now, a tune-up prior is advised. But the outcome of Charlo-Tszyu is just as tough to predict now as it was in 2022 or ‘23.

14) Crawford vs. Charlo: This was also a more marketable fight before Charlo mailed in his performance against Canelo Alvarez and then went into hiding. But it’s still a fine matchup of veteran names, Charlo may still have plenty left (nobody really knows), and if he doesn’t, at least it would hand off the lineal title to the fighter generally regarded as the man to beat at 154.

15) Crawford vs. Fundora: One of the alphabet groups tried in August to order this as a title unification, and that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen, but I do slightly prefer it to Fundora-Spence. Look, no matter how great a 5’8” fighter is, you never know quite how he’s going to do against a 6’6” fighter until you see them in the ring together. If Fundora beats Spence, we probably will see Crawford-Fundora. And it sure would be nice if Crawford — who has countless other attractive options — wasn’t just sitting on the sidelines until then.

Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, Ringside Seat, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X or LinkedIn, or via email at [email protected].