The recent undisputed champion in junior middleweight has only two belts left out of four
Jermell Charlo vacated the championship belt IBF junior middleweight, refusing to defend the title against mandatory challenger Bakhram Murtazaliev of Russia.
Thus, the recent absolute champion in this weight category (up to 154 pounds or up to 69.85 kg) has already lost two of his four titles in less than two months.
Let us remember that Charlo previously lost the WBO junior middleweight championship belt, which he was supposed to defend in a fight with Tim Tszyu. This happened with the first bell for Jermell’s fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez on October 1st. For the sake of this fight, Charlo refused the fight with Tim Tszyu, moved up two weight categories – and ultimately lost to Alvarez by unanimous decision.
Now only two championship belts in the junior middleweight are assigned to Charlo – WBA and WBC.
The vacated IBF title is expected to be contested by Murtazaliev and Germany’s Jack Culcay, the organization’s two highest-ranked contenders.
Source: Sportarena
I am Ashley Ortiz and I am a professional journalist working for Athletistic. My specialty is in sports journalism, particularly boxing. I have written articles for some of the most renowned publications on the subject, and my work has been featured across both print and digital media platforms.
