Jermell Charlo has been stripped of his WBA junior middleweight title, meaning the former undisputed champion has lost the last of his undisputed titles.
WBA president Gilberto Mendoza informed Dan Rafael of the championship committee’s decision to relieve the 33-year-old Charlo of his final piece of title hardware.
Charlo is 35-2-1 (19 KOs), now without a belt for the first time since 2019, and he hasn’t boxed since a lopsided defeat – moving up two weight classes – to Canelo Alvarez at the T-Mobile in Las Vegas last September.
Charlo fought once in 2020, once in 2021, once in 2022 and Canelo was his only fight last year.
Charlo did not defend the undisputed mantle he earned having unified against Brian Castano in 2022 in a rematch of their 2021 draw, but while he could still be classed as a lineal champion, the WBA has now officially called him a champion in recess.
Charlo has had out of the ring problems, and having fought Canelo at super middleweight, he had not informed the governing body of his plans, either of fighting again or, if so, what weight class he would return in.
As expected, the WBA title will now be on the line on this Friday, (March 8), in Saudi Arabia when Uzbek Israil Madrimov, the WBA No. 1, and Russia’s Magomed Kurbanov (No. 2) meet.
Madrimov is 9-0-1 (6 KOs) while Kurbanov is 25-0 with 13 stoppages.