Jermall was tested and Jermell was robbed.
Both matches from the Brooklyn debut of Premier Boxing Champion’s new broadcast deal with FOX looked like mismatches featuring the Charlo brothers on paper. That isn’t exactly how things turned out. In the main event, secondary middleweight titleholder Jermall Charlo (28-0, 21 KOs) had to overcome a hot start from Russian late replacement challenger Matt Korobov (28-2, 14 KOs). Given that Korobov was soundly defeated in his one step up against Andy Lee and hadn’t made 160 lbs since, little was expected of him in the building up this week. Nobody told Korobov that though, apparently.
Almost all the bigger shots in the first half of the fight came from the challenger. Korobov was finding consistent success with strong left hands that were having a visible impact on the favored Charlo brother. Yet, probably because he came in at middleweight on only six days notice, the Russian faded notably in the fight’s second half. Jermall took advantage and began to pick him a part a bit, most notably in the twelfth and final round. In the last three minutes Charlo had his challenger badly hurt and on the verge of being finished. Matt survived, however, and made it to the reading of the scorecards.
S8C scored this one 115-113 for Jermall Charlo. Official scores came back 116-112 twice and a pretty ridiculous 119-109 in his favor.
Of course that is why there are three scorecards. If there is a random outlier, it is nullified by the other two cards in theory. But what happens when all three scorecards comeback complete gibberish? Why in that case you might have been watching Jermell Charlo (31-1, 15 KOs) “lose” his title belt to Tony Harrison (28-2, 21 KOs).
The co-main event found the 154 lb title belt having Charlo seemingly outwork Tony Harrison over twelve rounds only to have the decision very much not represent that. It wasn’t that Harrison was terrible in there or anything. He fought a slow, methodical fight that saw him land a decent set of counters of the twelve round distance. It just shouldn’t have been anywhere near enough. Jermell’s jab and lead power hand were on point all night. This is statistically backed up by the fact that Charlo was credited with over thirty more landed power shots as well.
I scored this fight 116-112 for Jermell. Scanning the internet, it looks like I was about as generous as it got for Tony Harrison too in giving him four rounds. ESPN, Badlefthook, and the FOX broadcast all had the fight 117-111 for Jermell Charlo, for example. Yet somehow the official cards came back 115-113 twice and 116-112 in the other direction.
This was a real head scratcher. Usually a bad set of scorecards goes in favor of the man the house wanted to win, but in this case PBC was definitely looking for Jermell Charlo to have his hand raised in order to set up a unification showdown with Jarrett Hurd later in the year. That can still happen as a rematch here makes sense with Hurd’s timeline of insisting on another tune up before a big fight, but this definitely wasn’t the route Haymon and company were looking to travel.
There was no scoring drama in the heavyweight opener at least. Dominic Breazeale (20-1, 18 KOs) did what heavyweights sometimes do by abruptly ending his fight with Carlos Negron (20-2, 16 KOs) with a single shot in the ninth round. The lesser known Puerto Rican was game and somewhat competitive early, but Breazeale had taken over the fight by its midway point with his right hand. It was that same shot that saw Negron collapsed hard to a knee in the ninth. Though he didn’t go all the way down, it was clear that Carlos was very badly hurt and the fight was stopped accordingly. It was a bit of a sloppy fight between the big men overall, probably because they had been inactive with Breazeale last fighting 13 months ago and Negron a full 18 months since his last fight. With the win Dominic Breazeale kept himself in talks to be a potential future Deontay Wilder opponent. Hopefully that won’t happen any time soon though with better opponents on the table for the WBC heavyweight titleholder in Anthony Joshua or a rematch with Tyson Fury.
