In a disappointing fight, unbeaten former IBF junior middleweight champion Jermall Charlo (26-0, 20 KOs) destroyed an injured #1 WBC Jorge Sebastian Heiland (29-5-2, 16 KOs) by a 4h round knockout in a WBC title eliminator on Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. It was disappointing because Heiland appeared injured before the fight even started.
Charlo, 27, knocked Heiland down in the 2nd and 4th rounds. The fight was stopped after Heiland was dropped in round 4. Heiland got back up from the knockdown, but his injured left leg prevented him from standing and he fell back into the ropes. The referee Benji Esteves then halted the fight at 2:13 of round 4.
The 30-year-old Heiland appeared to come into the fight with a pre-existing injury to his left leg. It seemed like Heiland was limping as he went to center ring to start fighting. Once the action started, Charlo teed off on the limping southpaw Heiland in hitting him at will with shots.
It wasn’t much of a fight due to Heiland’s injury. The big punching Charlo was hitting Heiland at will with big power shots, as the Argentinian fighter had no defense due to his injury. Heiland looked powerful when he threw shots. He caught Charlo every now and then with some nice punches, but he couldn’t get full power on them due to his left leg being injured.
When Heiland entered the ring before the start of the fight, his left leg was already tapped up. He was told that he needed to take the tape off. Once the tape was off, it was pretty obvious that he was injured. The tape being there in the first place was a sign that wasn’t right.
It’s a pity the boxing fans couldn’t see Charlo show off his talent against a healthy Heiland, because it would have been a lot more meaningful victory for the Texas native.
With the win, Charlo is now the mandatory challenger to WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. When Charlo will get the title shot against Golovkin is unclear, as he has a fight against Saul Canelo Alvarez on September 16 on HBO PPV. Canelo and Golovkin could fight a rematch, and there’s a possibility that Golovkin will look to fight a unification match against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders after that.
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In other boxing results on the card, unbeaten heavyweight contender Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller (19-0-1, 17 KOs) defeated former heavyweight world title challenger Gerald Washington (18-2-1, 12 KOs) by an 8h round knockout.
The fight was stopped at the end of round 8 by Washington’s corner. He was hurt in the 8th. Miller had nailed the 35-year-old Washington with some tremendous shots in the round.
Earlier in the fight, Miller had Washington badly hurt in the 5th after hitting him with some powerful combinations. In the 6th, Washington came back to land some nice head shots that seemed to buzz the 298 pound Miller. To his credit, Miller came back and had the 6’7” Washington hurt.
It was a good fight with both guys taking turns hurting each other. It wasn’t as an impressive performance by the 29-year-old Miller as we’d seen from WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder, who stopped Washington in the 5th round last February. However, Miller clearly doesn’t have Wilder’s hand speed and punching power. Miller is a good puncher, but he’s a lot slower than Wilder.