Those husky voices are recognisable to me anywhere, it can only be America’s boxing twin stars Jermell and Jarmell Charlo.
These guys were born on the 19th May 1990 and are from Richmond, Texas.
Jermall is older than his identical twin Jermell only by a minute.
Both brothers graduated at Alief Hastings High School in Houston, Texas.
Their father was a former boxer and it was following their father into the gym that got them into the sport of boxing.
Jermall Charlo
Jermall Charlo is an American professional boxer who has held the WBC interim middleweight title since April 2018 and previously the IBF junior middleweight title from 2015 to 2017. Jermall is ranked as the world’s fourth best active middleweight by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board and BoxRec and fifth by The Ring Magazine
Jermall is the older of his identical twin Jermell only by a minute. Both brothers are graduates of Alief Hastings High School in Houston Texas. Their interest in boxing started when they use to follow their father, a former boxer, into the gym.
As an amateur, Jermall was hopeful for a spot on the 2008 US Olympic Team but he was forced to back out due to a toe injury. He competed in the amateur ranks for one more year and finished with a record of 65 wins and 6 losses.
Jermall made his professional debut on 12 August 2008 against Cimmaron Davis and won the fight with a 2nd round technical knockout. On 11th July 2009 his second opponent was Deon Nash (the opponent his brother Jermell went up against and beat in 2008)
Jermall won a comfortable unanimous decision victory and later fought Nash in a rematch on 28th August 2010 and Charlo ended up winning again by a corner retirement.
On 24th October 2010 Jermall went up against Puerto Rican Carlos Garcia, whom his brother Jermell had fought a year before. Both brothers beat Garcia by unanimous decisions and over the next five years, Jarmall remained undefeated picking up wins over Orlando Lora, Antwone Smith and Norberto Gonzalez. By the end of 2014, Jermall had a record of 20 wins with 16 coming inside the distance and no losses.
On 28th March 2015 Jermall went up against a highly talented prospect, Michael Kenneth Finney (12-2-1,10 Kos) at The Palms Casino in Vegas. Charlo won all of the rounds on all 3 scorecards and won a unanimous decision victory. The fight nearly came to an end a few times during the fight however, Finney managed to take Jermall the distance for the fifth time in his career.
In May 2015, 42 year old Cornelius Bundrage (34-5, 19 KOs) was ordered by the IBF to make a mandatory title defense against Charlo. The 25th July was a potential date discussed initially and on 8th June a few weeks prior to the fight taking place, Bundrage was forced to pull out of the fight citing an injury above his left eye. The card, which was scheduled to 18th July was postponed. The deep cut happened during a sparring session and on 17th August it was confirmed that the fight would take place at Foxwoods Resort Casino, Connecticut on the 12th September. After an 18-month wait, Charlo dismantled Bundrage and captured the IBF light middleweight title with a dominating third-round knockout win. Bundrage was knocked down once in rounds 1 and 2 and twice in round 3, an overhand right put Bundrage down in round 1. Charlo never allowed Bundrage to get into the fight, constantly applying pressure. The second knockdown, which occurred in round 2 was from a left jab. Fast combinations to the head dropped Bundrage early in round 3 and a couple of minutes later, a final blow to the head. The referee did attempt to make a count and stopped the fight at 2 minutes and 33 seconds. After the fight, Bundrage said, “I hadn’t fought in 11 months, you can’t be inactive fighting these young guys”.
A few weeks after winning the title, Charlo’s trainer Ronnie Shields confirmed that Jarmall would make his first defence against veteran Wilky Campfort (21-1, 12 KOs) on 28th November 2015 at The Bomb Factory in Dallas, Texas. Campfort’s sole loss on his record came in his second professional fight via majority decision after 4 rounds.
Shield’s, who had been training both the twins, recently confirmed he would no longer be working with Jermell. He stated it was on good terms and it would not affect how Jermall would perform.
Charlo floored Campfort in round 2 with a counter right hand. He recorded a second knockdown the following round after a flurry in the corner forced Campfort to take a voluntary knee. Towards the end of round 3 Charlo hit a perfect left uppercut clean to the left eye of Campfort, compromising his vision was instantly to take a knee again. Despite beating the count, Campfort complained that he was unable to see, causing referee Mark Calo-Oy to wave off the fight. Over the 4 rounds, Charlo out landed Campfort 62-11, connecting on 30% of his power shots. After the bout, Charlo confirmed he would stay at light middleweight and continue to defend his title, however he wanted the big fights. He also praised his jab, calling it the best in the business.
On 29th March 2016, it was announced that Jamrall would make a defence against former world champion Austin “no doubt” (30-2, 17 KOs) at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas in Vegas on the 21st May. The card also included top light middleweights Erislandy Lara, Vanes Martirosyan and his brother Jermell.
In a close contested bout, Charlo defeated Trout by a 12 round unanimous decision. The judges’ scored the fight 115-113, 116-112, 116-112. Charlo landed the harder shots to dominate the action in the first six rounds. However, Charlo seemed to gas out a little in the second half of the fight and was outworked by Trout. Trout suffered a cut over his right eye in the 10th round from a clash of heads but fought well despite suffering the cut. The crowd booed loudly when the scores were read out to let the judges know that they felt Trout should have won. Charlo landed 130 of 474 punches thrown (27%) and Trout landed 117 of his 490 thrown (24%). Trout received a purse of $300,000 and Charlo earned a purse of $500,000.
Charlo’s next title defense was set to be against the No. 1 contender Julian Wiliams (22-0-1, 14 KOs) on 10th December 2016 at the USC Galen Center in LA but the fight was pushed back as Charlo was nursing an eye injury and was given a 60-day medical extension by IBF. There were also rumours that Charlo would vacate the title to move up to middleweight. Jarmall retained his IBF junior middleweight title with a fifth round stoppage of Williams. Charlo dropped Williams in the second round with a powerful jab. Williams came back and fought a clever fight, making Charlo miss, slipping punches, landing some good counters. In round 5, Charlo landed a right uppercut, dropping Williams hard. Williams got up, however Charlo went for the finish, and got it with a third knockdown after a barrage of punches ending with a left hook. After the referee stopped the fight, Williams went over to congratulate Charlo. Charlo didn’t want to embrace and told Williams,”I don’t want your congratulations, I want your apology.” The crowd noticing the heat between the two corners started to boo Charlo. In the post fight interview, Charlo stated Williams had disrespected him leading up to the fight, he also called out Canelo and Golovkin, stating he would move up to middleweight.
On the 16th February 2017 Jarmall officially vacated his IBF light middleweight title in order to move up to middleweight. He had wanted to unify the light middleweight division, but there were no titlists available. At the time, twin Jermell, who Jermall had vowed he would never fight, held the WBC title. He also stated after the Williams fight that he had been struggling to make weight. Charlo told ESPN, “It was either going to be a big fight for me at 154 pounds, like against Miguel Cotto or Canelo Alvarez, something big like that, or move up”. On 11th March the WBC ranked Charlo number 2 ahead of David Lemieux and Curtis Stevens who were ranked 3 and 4 respectively. The IBF gave Charlo a number 3 ranking and in March 2017 it was reported by ESPN Deportes that an announcement would be made for Charlo to fight WBC number 1 ranked, Argentinian boxer Jorge Sebastian Heiland in a final eliminator.
So on 5th June 2017, reports circulated around Argentina that WBC mandatory challenger Jorge Sebastian Heiland (28-4-2, 15 KOs) would be ordered to fight Jarmall in a final eliminator but Heiland had been the mandatory since 2015. Early talks had indicated the fight could take place on the undercard of the Mikey Garcia v Adrien Bronder undercard. On 9th June the WBC officially ordered the fight between the two, with the winner becoming the mandatory challenger for the winner of Canelo Alverez v GGG which would take place in September 2017. The fight was officially announced on 27th June.
Charlo weighed in a career high of 159.2 pounds while Heiland came in slightly lighter at 158.2 pounds.
Jarmal became the mandatory challenger for the WBC middleweight title with a stoppage win over an injured Heiland in round 4. At the start of the fight, it was clear that Heiland’s left leg was injured. Charlo first dropped Heiland in round 2 with a left to the head the in round 4, Charlo landed another left hook to the head which dropped Heiland again. Heiland beat the count, but as he was getting up, he stumbled around due to the injury. Referee Benji Esteves stopped the fight immediately at 2:13 of the fourth round to ensure Heiland took no more punishment. Charlo spoke to Showtime’s Jim Gray in the post fight interview, “sometimes the injury can be a decoy. You never want to just jump in and think it’s part of his game plan. My coach, Ronnie Sheilds told me to stay behind my jab like I did, continue to work and it’s gonna come.” The ringside doctor checked Heiland’s leg before the fourth round but let the action continue. Heiland stated that his leg was okay before the fight and the injury occurred in the opening round.
On 21st November 2017 the WBC announced that Charlo would have the opportunity to claim the Interim WBC middleweight title against Hugo Centeno (26-1, 14 KOs). WBC President Maurcio Sulaiman explained the reason for this being due to the full WBC title being tied up in a potential rematch between Golovkin and Álvarez. A possible date in January 2018 was being discussed at the time however, due to negotiations not being made, on 2nd January 2018 Sulaiman ordered the fight and confirmed it would be sanctioned by the WBC for the interim championship.
On 23rd January the fight was made official to take place on the undercard of Deontay Wilder’s WBC heavyweight title defence against Luis Ortiz on 3rd March at the Barclays Center but on 23rd February the fight was postoned after Centeno injured his ribs in training. The fight was quickly rescheduled to take place on 21st April on the Adrien Broner v Jessie Vargas undercard. On fight night, in front of a crowd of 13,964 people, Jarmall won the vacant WBC interim middleweight title after knocking out Centeno in round 2. The knockdown came when Charlo landed a left hook to the head followed by a right hand to Centeno. The fight was promptly halted by referee Steve Willis and the official time was at 0:55 of round 2. Charlo spent the first round stalking Centeno, who was reluctant to exchange. After the fight, Charlo said, “I’m a two-time world champion. Bring on Triple G! I want that fight! The networks, HBO and Showtime and the teams can figure out how to get the Triple G fight done. I have the best manager in Al Haymon in the world. I’m 27-0 with 21 knockouts. Everybody sees it. What more can I say?” The statistics showed that Charlo landed 12 of 35 punches thrown (34%) and Centeno landed 10 of his 31 thrown (32%).
Professional boxing record:
27 Fights. 27 Wins. 21 Wins by way of KO. 6 Wins by decision. No losses.
