Castano injury forces postponement of Charlo rematch for undisputed 154 title
All 4 belts might not be at stake when bout is rescheduled
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The rematch between Jermell Charlo and Brian Castano for the undisputed junior middleweight championship has been postponed because Castano has suffered a minor right biceps tear, a source with knowledge of the injury told Fight Freaks Unite on Wednesday night.
The immediate rematch was scheduled to take place March 19 at Crypto Arena (the newly renamed Staples Center) in Los Angeles and headline a Premier Boxing Champions card on Showtime.
However, according to the source, Castano suffered the injury during a sparring session about two weeks ago and will be sidelined for about a month.
The timing of the injury was right around the time that PBC announced the fight but only with an alert sent to media about tickets. There was no usual press release with follow-up comments from the boxers or promoter and no typical video conference for media to speak to the boxers.
When the fight is rescheduled — it would not take place until at least May or June — it is possible, if not likely, that it will no longer be for all four belts. That is because George Rose of No Limit Promotions, the promoter of Tim Tszyu, Castano’s mandatory challenger, raised objections in writing on Wednesday to the WBO, whose belt Castano has, about Tszyu having to wait yet again for his title shot while the Charlo-Castano rematch is rescheduled.
When the rematch was first put together, the sanctioning bodies agreed to stand down and allow it to take place without ordering any mandatory defenses. With a delay, all bets are off, however.
Plans were in the works for Australia’s Tszyu (20-0, 15, KOs), 27, the son of Hall of Famer Kostya Tszyu, to make his United States debut in the co-feature against 2012 U.S. Olympian Terrell Gausha (22-2-1, 11 KO) and then get the mandatory title shot at the main event winner.
But Rose made it clear in his letter than Tszyu no longer wants to wait and late Wednesday night, the WBO, whose belt Castano holds, followed up on Rose’s complaint and issued a “show cause” letter sent to Charlo promoter Tom Brown of TGB Promotions, Castano manager Sebastian Contursi and Charlo. It gave Brown 24 hours to “show cause” as to why the WBO should not enforce Castano’s mandatory defense against Tszyu next and order the camps to negotiate.
The letter also referenced Castano’s injury and “therefore, Castano is unavailable to participate as scheduled. Consequently, TGB Promotions informed Mr. Rose that the Charlo/Castano would be rescheduled for either the months of May or June of 2022. Considering the preceding circumstances and Mr. Rose’s objection that the WBO mandatory title defense is further delayed, he requests that this Committee proceeds with the immediate enforcement of the WBO mandatory title defense between Brian Castano and Tim Tszyu accordingly.”
Besides issues keeping the WBO belt part of the Charlo-Castano rematch, the delay could also prompt one of the other sanctioning bodies to order Charlo, who holds the WBC, IBF and WBA titles, to make a mandatory defense, which could further reduced the number of belts at stake in the rematch.
Israil Madrimov (8-0, 6 KOs) is the WBA’s mandatory challenger and Bakhram Murtazaliev (19-0, 14 KOs), who has stepped aside twice and boxed on Charlo’s previous two undercards, is the IBF mandatory challenger. The WBC mandatory challenger will be the winner of a final elimination bout between Erickson Lubin (24-1, 17 KOs) and Sebastian Fundora (18-0-1, 12 KOs). They are scheduled to fight on April 9 on Showtime.
Charlo (34-1-1, 18 KOs), 31, of Houston, and Castano (17-0-2, 12 KOs), 32, of Argentina, fought to a heavily disputed split draw — most thought Castano deserved the victory — for the undisputed 154-pound title on July 17 in a Showtime-televised main event at the AT&T Center in San Antonio.
Judge Steve Weisfeld scored it 114-113 for Castano, Tim Cheatham had it 114-114 and Nelson Vazquez the outlier score that has been heavily criticized of 117-111 for Charlo, who won the 10th, 11th and 12th rounds on all three scorecards to secure the draw.
There has never been an undisputed champion in the 154-pound division during the four-belt era. The last time there was an undisputed champion in the division was during the three-belt era when then-IBF titlist Winky Wright pulled the upset decision against WBC/WBA counterpart and fellow International Boxing Hall of Famer Shane Mosley in their first fight in 2004.
There have only been six male boxers to become undisputed champions in the four-belt era: super middleweight Canelo Alvarez (2021), junior welterweight Josh Taylor (2021), cruiserweight Oleksandr Usyk (2018), junior welterweight Terrence Crawford (2017) and middleweights Jermain Taylor (2005) and Bernard Hopkins (2004).
Photo: Amanda Westcott/Showtime
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Why does it take so long to organise rematches these days?
The first Charlo vs Castano fight was back in July last year surely it was possible to organise the rematch before March 19th this year.
If they hadn't taken so long to set up the rematch these problems with having to satisfy mandatories wouldn't have occurred.
Thank you for keeping us informed, Dan. Some constructive feedback: Canelo is missing from that last paragraph.