On Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, fight fans were treated to a rare showdown – a battle between two undisputed champions on Showtime PPV.
In one corner, it was super middleweight champ Canelo Alvarez and junior middleweight champ Jermell Charlo in the other. Charlo was coming up two weight classes in an effort to dethrone Alvarez, who was making the third defense of his undisputed crown.
Canelo however, made it clear early on that this was not going to be a historic night for Charlo, as the 168-pound kingpin applied constant pressure and never allowed his opponent to get into any sort of rhythm.
Canelo cut off the ring and kept Charlo on the move – Charlo simply couldn’t get anything even remotely resembling offense going, and to many observers, appeared he was in survival mode from start to finish.
In the seventh round, Canelo unloaded a straight right hand that caught Charlo near the temple that clearly stung. Charlo tried to fend off Canelo but shortly after opted to take a knee instead, though he managed to get back to his feet and make it out of the round.
That was as close as Canelo would get the rest of the fight to being in any position to end things but pitched a near shutout to remain champion.
Scores were 119-108, 118-109, and 118-109 for Canelo Alvarez.
