Fighting Words: For today’s junior middleweights, chaos is a ladder

The junior middleweight division of yesterday, when Jermell Charlo was around, was a lot of fun. The junior middleweight division of today is also a lot of fun – and that is partly because Charlo is no longer around.

For several entertaining years, the 154-pound landscape was an unofficial round-robin, with the best fighting the best and the rest fighting the rest, mixing and matching and bringing us a combination of excellent battles, dominant performances and surprising upsets until, eventually, we arrived at clarity.

Charlo was the man. He won his rematch with Brian Castano in 2022 to become the undisputed junior middleweight champion.

He hasn’t fought at 154 since.

Charlo’s last appearance in the ring was 12 months ago and 14 pounds north, when he jumped up two weight classes and challenged Canelo Alvarez for the undisputed super middleweight championship. Charlo lost a wide decision and has yet to return to the ring in any weight class, never mind the one where he made his name.

Charlo’s extended absence from the 154-pound division led to him eventually losing all four major world titles. The WBO stripped him in September 2023 on the night of the Canelo fight. He vacated the IBF title in November 2023. The WBC downgraded him in January to its “champion in recess.” The WBA made the same move in March.

That left four belts up for grabs, an absent king, and several fighters who want to claim the throne and know they must go to battle again and again on the path from ascension to retention to unification to, at last, ruling from atop. 

It is still early in the story, but the story has already been chaotic, and that chaos has been a ladder (more on that later).

But before we get to the current chaos, we need to recap what came before.

The route toward the Jermell Charlo Era also featured titleholders and contenders such as Castano, Jermall Charlo, Terrell Gausha, Tony Harrison, Jarrett Hurd, Erislandy Lara, Erickson Lubin, Jeison Rosario, Austin Trout and Julian Williams.

Among the key stops and intersections along the way:

September 2015: Jermall Charlo defeated Cornelius Bundrage to win the IBF title.

January 2016: Floyd Mayweather’s retirement meant Erislandy Lara was upgraded to the full WBA titleholder.

May 2016: Jermall Charlo defeated Trout; Jermell Charlo defeated John Jackson for the vacant WBC belt.

December 2016: Jermall Charlo defeated Williams.

April 2017: Nathaniel Gallimore defeated Rosario.

February 2017: Jermall Charlo vacated the IBF title, and Hurd defeated Harrison for that vacant belt.

August 2017: Miguel Cotto defeated Yoshihiro Kamegai for the vacant WBO title. (Alas, the WBO line remained separate from most of the other notable titleholders and contenders for another three and a half years, passing through Sadam Ali and Jaime Munguia until Munguia vacated the belt.)

October 2017: Hurd defeated Trout; Lara defeated Terrell Gausha; Jermell Charlo defeated Lubin.

April 2018: Hurd defeated Lara to unify the IBF and WBA titles; Williams defeated Gallimore.

June 2018: Jermell Charlo defeated Trout.

December 2018: Harrison defeated Jermell Charlo for the WBC title.

March 2019: Lara and Castano fought to a draw.

May 2019: Williams defeated Hurd to win the IBF and WBA titles.

October 2019: Lubin defeated Gallimore.

November 2019: Munguia vacated the WBO title. 

December 2019: Patrick Teixeira was elevated to full WBO titleholder (but did not make his first defense until 2021). Jermell Charlo defeated Harrison in their rematch to regain the WBC title

January 2020: Rosario defeated Williams for the IBF and WBA titles.

September 2020: Jermell Charlo defeated Rosario to unify the IBF, WBA and WBC titles; Lubin defeated Gausha.

February 2021: Castano defeated Patrick Teixeira for the WBO title.

June 2021: Lubin defeated Rosario.

July 2021: Castano and Jermell Charlo fought to a draw in a bout for the undisputed championship.

May 2022: Jermell Charlo knocked out Castano for the undisputed championship.

June 2022: Jermell Charlo and Tim Tszyu agreed to fight on a date to be announced.

December 2022: Charlo vs. Tszyu was announced for January 2023. A couple weeks later, the fight was postponed because Charlo hurt his hand in training camp. The fight was never rescheduled.

By the time Jermell was crowned champion, most of the other names were no longer viable junior middleweight contenders and/or had departed for the middleweight division.

Gausha, Harrison and Lubin have served as a bit of a bridge between eras. Gausha lost to Tszyu in March 2022. Lubin lost to Sebastian Fundora in April 2022. Harrison lost to Tszyu in March 2023.

Lubin should still be considered a contender at 154, though he hasn’t fought since a September 2023 victory over Jesus Ramos. Castano hasn’t fought since the loss to Jermell Charlo two and a half years ago.

Sometimes when a fighter becomes undisputed, there’s no one left to face. This time, that wasn’t the case. The new generation, including Tszyu and Fundora, soon arrived as the next generation of contenders for Charlo. 

Charlo remains absent, but they have been joined by a number of notable names. That has made for a far better situation at 154 than the vacuum left at 147 when Terence Crawford became the undisputed welterweight champion and then departed, leaving Jaron “Boots” Ennis and a few others to try to build something new amid the rubble.

Here’s what’s happened at junior middleweight since:

April 2023: Brian Mendoza shocked Sebastian Fundora via knockout.

September 2023: Tszyu ascended from interim WBO titleholder to full titleholder.

March 2024: Israel Madrimov defeated Magomed Kurbanov for the vacant IBF title. Weeks later, Tszyu was supposed to face Keith Thurman in the main event of a pay-per-view, and the undercard was supposed to feature Fundora vs. Serhii Bohachuk for the vacant WBC title. But Thurman got hurt, so Fundora stepped in and defeated Tszyu (with the help of a gargantuan cut in Tszyu’s forehead, the blood from which frequently obscured the tough Australian’s vision) for the WBO and WBC belts. On the undercard, Bohachuk remained in position with a win over Mendoza.

April 2024: Bakhram Murtazaliev defeated Jack Culcay for the vacant IBF belt. Weeks later, a fight between Tszyu and Vergil Ortiz was announced in April for a date in August.

May 2024: Tszyu’s lingering injuries from the Fundora fight led to the Ortiz bout being canceled. Ortiz instead agreed to a fight with Bohachuk in August.

August 2024: Terence Crawford defeated Israil Madrimov for the WBA title and the interim WBO belt, earning him a mandatory shot at Fundora. One week later, Ortiz won a close fight over Bohachuk for the interim WBC title, earning him a mandatory shot at Fundora as well.

Chaos is indeed a ladder. Fundora, one year removed from a loss, entered a fight with Tszyu as a late replacement opponent and exited with two world titles. Crawford has agreed to allow Fundora a voluntary defense; Fundora is likely aiming for Errol Spence, but Spence is not yet rated by the WBO at 154.

Murtazaliev, signed with Main Events and therefore not aligned with any of the major networks, won a vacant title that earned him leverage — and a spot in the October 19 Premier Boxing Champions main event on Amazon Prime defending against Tszyu.

Bohachuk, deprived of his title shot in March and on the short end of a close decision in August, will get a December 21 fight with Madrimov. And Madrimov, like Bohachuk, is being rewarded for his performance in defeat.

Golden Boy Promotions has a pair of junior middleweight contenders in Ortiz and Charles Conwell. 

Lubin, Mendoza and Ramos are still around. Other fighters are on their way up and at different stages in their development, including Xander Zayas and Yoenis Tellez.

Oh, and Jermell Charlo has said he wants to return to the mix at junior middleweight, though no comeback date has been set.

That would be quite a story. A king — who is absent but has not yet abdicated his lineal crown — coming back to try to regain what was once solely his.

In the meantime, all of these claimants to the throne are mixing it up much as they did in the Charlo Era. Every fight is another potential step up the ladder. Each time in the ring represents another rung.

David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter @FightingWords2 and @UnitedBoxingPod. He is the co-host of the United Boxing Podcast. David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.