Charlo returning at 154, invokes right to title shot vs. Madrimov
See letter his team sent the WBA asserting "champion in recess" privileges in a move that blocks plans for Crawford to fight for the belt
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Lineal junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo’s plans to return to the division seemingly will throw a big wrench into the plans of pound-for-pound king and unified welterweight champion Terence Crawford.
Crawford has not fought since pummeling Errol Spence Jr. in a ninth-round knockout victory to fully unify the welterweight division and become the first undisputed champion of the four-belt era last July.
Spence exercised his contractual right to an immediate rematch but because of how one-sided the fight was Premier Boxing Champions, not to mention the public, had little interest in seeing it again and then it became a moot point when time limit of when the rematch was supposed to happen expired, making Crawford a free agent
On Wednesday, Turki Alalshikh, a diehard boxing fan who essentially picks the fights he wants to see and pays big money for them in his role as the head of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, posted a photo of Crawford in the ring following his win against Spence to his social media. Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs), 36, a three-division champion from Omaha, Nebraska, later re-posted it.
The reason, apparently, for Alalshikh’s post was because Crawford has been in talks with Alalshikh and Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn about moving up in weight — which most expected he would do — to challenge newly crowned WBA junior middleweight titleholder Israil Madrimov in August in the United States, sources told Fight Freaks Unite.
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