It’s time for Jermall Charlo to take on the other top players in the middleweight division.
As expected, the Houston-based 160-pound titleholder made short work of fringe contender Dennis Hogan, dropping the Irish-Australian twice on his way to a seventh-round stoppage at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
The second knockdown came courtesy of a blazing lead left hook that sent Hogan crashing to the canvas. Hogan got up on unsteady legs, but as he began wavering to his left, referee Charlie Hitch waved off the bout at 2:32 of the seventh.
“I made it through 2019 and we’re going to 2020 with 20/20 vision,” Charlo said. “Shout out to Dennis Hogan for giving me real competition and for coming up to fight me. Of course, my power prevailed tonight.”
Hogan (28-3-1, 7 knockouts) aquitted himself well from the opening round, peppering Charlo with lead left hooks and a consistent jab, as a considerable pro-Hogan contingent cheered him on.
But the size difference between the two fighters was plainly evident. Hogan, after all, was a career junior middleweight fighting for the first time at middleweight. Though he was catching Charlo with clean punches early on, they clearly had limited effect. Hogan also made a bad habit of rushing in with some of his punches, opening himself up to counters.
Indeed, in Round 4, Charlo (30-0, 22 KOs) clocked his opponent coming in with a hard counter left uppercut that sent Hogan somersaulting backwards into the ropes. Though Hogan managed to survive, Charlo had found his groove. In the ensuing rounds, Charlo dug in with brutal power punches that began taking their toll on Hogan.
It was a typically violent ending for Charlo, but his resume at middleweight has been threadbare thus far. With the exception of his fight against Matvey Korobov (who suffered a fight-ending shoulder injury earlier in the night), Charlo has faced mostly underwhelming opposition since he moved up to middleweight in 2017. Jorge Sebastian Heiland, Hugo Centeno Jr., Matvey Korobov and Brandon Adams do little to whet the appetite.
Afterward, Charlo stayed mum on whom he preferred to fight next, while conceding that there were plenty of options in a division that includes other titleholders Gennadiy Golovkin, Canelo Alvarez and Demetrius Andrade.
“The middleweight division is wide open,” Charlo said. “I’m the WBC middleweight champion. I’m going to enjoy this. We’re going to get back to the drawing board. Shoot, I’m gonna fight whoever. But you have to make the right decision at the right time.”
Earlier in the night, Chris Eubank Jr. won by a second-round technical knockout when his opponent, Korobov, could no longer continue, citing a left shoulder injury. A Charlo-Eubank fight could be possible for 2020.