Charlo tops Adams, still WBC middle champion

Photos: Esther Lin/SHOWTIME

In front of a sold out crowd of his hometown fans, WBC middleweight world champion Jermall Charlo defended his new title for the first time and kept his unbeaten record in dominating fashion against Brandon Adams Saturday night at NRG Arena in Houston, Texas, live on Showtime. In a near-shutout unanimous decision, Charlo (29-0, 21 KOs) won by the scores of 120-108 (twice) and 119-109.
Jermall Charlo X Brandon Adams
In his first defense since being elevated to WBC middleweight champion on Wednesday, Charlo methodically picked apart the much smaller Adams (21-3, 13 KOs), a Los Angeles native who earned his title shot by winning the 2018 reboot of The Contender. Despite an injury to his left hand, Charlo recorded double digit connects in every round but the first while limiting the resilient and durable Adams to single digit connects in all but the final round.

Charlo was unable to punctuate his dominating display with the knockout he craved in front of the 6,408 fans who saw him headline in his hometown for the first time in his career. Despite that, Charlo was even more active than usual and led 151-73 overall in total punches landed and 118-42 in power punches connected. Charlo also made a concerted effort to attack the body, landing more shots to the body than in any his last five fights.

“I wasn’t frustrated that I didn’t get the knockout,” Charlo told SHOWTIME’s Hall of Fame ringside reporter Jim Gray following the fight. “This is boxing and he came out to box. I came out to fight. It was a good fight. The city of Houston, I’ll be back.

“My hand will be alright. I hurt my hand in like the second round but I kept throwing it. It was obvious my jab wasn’t flowing.”

“I was coming up here to win,” said Adams. “I was coming to try to take him out in his hometown. He did what he was supposed to do. He’s a champ for a reason and I take my hat off to hm.
“He’s a much bigger guy, period. I just tried to put my best foot forward and tried to take him out at the end.”

Looking ahead to what’s next, Charlo fired a warning shot to his fiercest competitors in the middleweight division.

“Canelo has done a great job of being a champ, Golovkin also,” said Charlo. “Those guys are at the top but there’s always a young underdog and a lion ready to take over. That’s me.”


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  • Am I the only one not impressed by either Charlo brother. Jacobs, Canelo, or Saunders would destroy this Charlo. And Spence and Crawford would destroy the other Charlo brother @ 154

    • Agreed. Both keep beating up on smaller guys or fringe contenders. Neither one has the next-level skills to be dominant in their respective divisions.

    • Oh I dont know, Adams had a good chin and he reminded me of Andy Ruiz in that he got tagged but it didn’t faze him, if only he threw more punches like Andy, Charlo put some leather on him but he had great defense. I say Charlo is still a dangerous man,

  • Brandon adams should commend himself 2x boxcino finalist. contender winner and fought for world title and performed admirably not bad.

  • I think Charlo looked good. Adams came to fight and made things interesting. Charlo takes chances which is something Andrade lacks

  • Charlo proving all the aficionado’s right when we said he was vastly overrated. His ‘world’ title is bullshit, just as his chances of becoming undisputed at 160.

  • Charlo is a great fighter BUT, I was impressed by Adams HOWEVER he (Adams ) never should have taken this fight due to Charlo’s height advantage… Adams needs to drop down in weight, I’d like to see him fight Porter, both have a brawler’s style… Adams has a tremendous chin, got nailed with sme very powerful shots… Charlo will continue to win….

  • So Charlo has the WBC Middleweight belt without ever fighting Canelo and now Canelo is the so called WBC Franchise Champion. SMH these belts continue to downgrade for more money through sanctioning fees. Sad to see how low they go from when i started watching in the 70s. When i started there was only 2 belts WBA and WBC there really only should be one.

    • I go farther back to the fifties where there was only one champion in each of the eight weight divisions. Free fights on network television every Wednesday and Friday night. Main stream sports fans knew the champions and a championship fight was a big sports event.

  • I think Charlie is a very solid fighter but always fight smaller or over matched opponents. I think its time to step up to fight a top 5 guy in his division

  • It’s like this, all of these so called fraud champs really need to understand they’re 2nd and 3rd tier fighters. Also all of a sudden the WBC decided he is now a REAL WBC champ, whatever that means. They pass out fake titles as fast as they make their sanctioning fee’s. We the people know who the real 160 lb champ is, and UNTIL GGG is defeated, not cheated, rail loaded or judge bought out of his title, he still is the only champ. As for Canelo, whenever he decides to get into the ring again he will find a guy that ONLY his mothers knows. And GGG has to contend with the DElaHO who made it very clear he will make him wait a lifetime now. A boxing commissioner is needed in this country, because boxing has become a cheap version of the WWE, only the WWE is a lot more REAL!!!!!!

    • Steve, solid points brother. I hope that one day, the people get completely tired of the shenanigans and create a “people’s ranking” system where we decide the real winners of major fights, and ignore the b.s that we are fed.

      • Thank you bro , there is no other option, a peoples ranking system and a boxing commissioner is the only way to go. We cannot have these 40 chumps per division, especially when most of these guys fight once a year. It’s time for people to speak out on this, boxing is making it impossible to love this game anymore. And these phony organizations with these phony ratings completely make boxing like a Shanghai side show. 1 CHAMP PER DIVISION NOTHING ELSE WILL DO.

    • And by so doing would put the criminals now in charge out of business.

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