The dream of having a four-belt king in the junior middleweight division is in serious peril.
Multiple reports indicate that Argentina’s Brian Castaño (17-0-2, 12 knockouts) has suffered a biceps tear during training and is now unable to comply with the March 19 date already set for his fight against Ring champion Jermell Charlo (34-1-1, 18 KOs) scheduled to take place in the newly-minted Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
The fight is being reportedly rescheduled for either May or June, but no word on the postponement or on possible rescheduled dates have been released yet.
This could mean the end of a carefully structured deal to keep all four belts at play in this fight. While Charlo owns the Ring belt and the IBF, WBA and WBC titles, Castaño holds the WBO belt, and all four sanctioning bodies had agreed in one way or the other to postpone their demands for mandatory bouts until after this clash. The WBO, however, has now issued an order for Castaño to “show cause” in order to avoid having a defense mandated against Australia’s Tim Tszyu.
Castaño may still choose to face Charlo in a very lucrative bout, but if his WBO belt is declared vacant then the Charlo side may choose to renegotiate their deal for the fight, now that it won’t be a unification but rather a defense of Charlo’s multiple belts. Furthermore, Charlo may face similar situations with other contenders to any of his multiple belts, triggering a potential conflict that could derail the Charlo-Castaño fight altogether.
The pair had already fought to a draw back in July 17, 2021, and have been negotiating a rematch ever since. Several dates were mentioned along the way, with March 19 being officially announced in early February. Now, with Tszyu’s management exerting pressure to get their fighter a title shot, and with mandatory contenders such as Bakhram Murtazaliev (IBF), Israil Madrimov (WBA) and the winner of the Erickson Lubin-Sebastian Fundora elimination bout (WBC) waiting in the wings to see how they can throw some weight of their own, the Charlo-Castaño rematch may be either seriously downgraded or not happen at all.