Pound for pound: Jermell Charlo earns a promotion with his KO victory

Pound for pound: Jermell Charlo earned a promotion with his KO victory over Brian Castano last Saturday.

Jermell Charlo continues his ascent.

The smaller of the Charlo twins stopped Brian Castano in the 10th round of their rematch to become the undisputed junior middleweight champion Saturday in Carson, California, which was arguably his finest performance.

As a result, Charlo (No. 11 last week) swaps places with Gennadiy Golovkin (No. 10) on the list, meaning he cracks the Top 10.

And, obviously, Charlo will have the opportunity to climb even higher because the 31-year-old Houstonian has more important fights in his future.

Meanwhile, Golovkin could face No. 7 Canelo Alvarez a third time in September. If he gets that pay-per-view fight and wins it, the 40-year-old would move up the list.

Here is what the list looks like at the moment:

BOXING JUNKIE
POUND-FOR-POUND

  1. Terence Crawford – No fight scheduled.
  2. Naoya Inoue – Scheduled to face Nonito Donaire in a bantamweight title-unification rematch on June 7 in Japan.
  3. Oleksandr Usyk – Reportedly set to face Anthony Joshua a second time on July 23 but no official announcement has been made.
  4. Errol Spence Jr. – No fight scheduled.
  5. Tyson Fury – No fight scheduled.
  6. Dmitry Bivol – No fight scheduled.
  7. Canelo Alvarez– No fight scheduled.
  8. Vasiliy Lomachenko – Career on hold because of the war in Ukraine.
  9. Juan Francisco Estrada – In talks to defend his WBC junior bantamweight title against Joshua Franco in June.
  10. Jermell Charlo – No fight scheduled.
  11. Gennadiy Golovkin – In talks to face Canelo Alvarez a third time in September but no official announcement has been made.
  12. Artur Beterbiev – Scheduled to face Joe Smith Jr. in a light heavyweight title-unification fight on June 18 in New York.
  13. Gervonta Davis – Scheduled to face Rolando Romero on May 28 in Brooklyn, New York.
  14. Jermall Charlo – Scheduled to defend his middleweight title against Maciej Sulecki on June 18 in Houston.
  15. Shakur Stevenson – No fight scheduled,

Honorable mention (alphabetical order): Nonito Donaire (scheduled to face Naoya Inoue on June 7); Roman Gonzalez (no fight scheduled); Kazuto Ioka (scheduled to defend junior bantamweight title against Donnie Nietes on July 13); George Kambosos (scheduled to defend his lightweight titles against Devin Haney on June 5); Josh Taylor (no fight scheduled).

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