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.

So much for making a statement.

Chris Eubank Jr. promised fireworks for his American debut against Matvey Korobov, but he barely had time to even fight, thanks to a freak accident. Barely 30 seconds into Round 2, Korobov threw a left hand and immediately motioned at referee Steve Willis for a timeout as he gestured at his left shoulder. After a brief deliberation in the corner with the ring doctor, Willis called off the fight.

Eubank (29-2, 22 knockouts) won by technical knockout on the undercard of the Jermall Charlo vs. Dennis Hogan main event at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The official time of the stoppage was 2:26 of the second round. Ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. cited the cause as a “left shoulder injury.”

“I feel like I was just about to start getting my swagger,” said Eubank, who simply shrugged at the crowd. “He just turned around and stopped. I was going to go jump on him. I guess something happened with his shoulder.

“I mean, there’s nothing to take from the fight.  I threw like three or four punches. I was just warming up.”

The loss marks the third straight tough outcome for  Korobov (28-3-1, 14 KOs), whose last two fights included a draw with Immanuel Aleem and decision loss to Jermall Charlo.

“I was trying to throw the left hand straight, and I just felt the muscle immediately, like I pulled it,” Korobov said. “It was a lot of pain right away. I couldn’t fight with just one arm, especially being a southpaw.”

Earlier, Ryosuke Iwasa dropped Marlon Tapales twice en route to an 11th-round stoppage in a scheduled 12-round junior featherweight bout.

The two southpaws traded left hands all fight long, but Tapales was sloppy, both on defense and offense. Iwasa (27-3, 17 KOs), from Kashiwa, Japan, was a bit  more accurate and patient, biding his time before decking Tapales (33-3, 16 KOs) with a straight left in the 11th round. The Filipino was able to get up, but when referee Shada Murdaugh motioned him to come forward, Tapales momentarily stumbled, forcing Murdaugh to end the fight at 1:09. 

In Round 3, a clash of heads caused Tapales to touch the canvas. Referee Murdaugh ruled it a knockdown. Thereafter a visible bruise appeared on Tapales’ right cheek. 

Toward the end, Tapales began to show signs that he was wilting. In Round 8, Tapales landed his best punch of the fight, a crunching right hook that drew oohs from a relatively sparse crowd. But Iwasa took the punch well and came back to land his own combinations. Winded, Tapales retreated to the ropes as Iwasa began teeing off on him for the rest of the round. Tapales trudged back to his corner, as if already defeated. 

Iwasa should be next in line to face the winner of the not-yet-finalized junior lightweight title fight between Danny Roman and Murodjon Ahkmadeliev.