Tony Harrison Eyeing a Fight with Jermell Charlo’s Mandatory
Now that super welterweight boxer Tony “Super Bad” Harrison (29-3-1, 21 KO’s) has gotten back into the win column, he is trying to storm the division. In his last duel, Harrison bested Sergio Garcia to snag his first win in four years. Naturally, Super Bad has no desire to sit on his hands and lose any more time. If given his way, the Detroit native would love a shot at Australian contender Tim “The Soul Taker” Tszyu (21-0, 15 KO’s) in his next assignment.
Unfortunately for Super Bad, Tszyu is already slated to match wits and brawn with undisputed 154-pound champion Jermell “Iron Man” Charlo (35-1-1, 19 KO’s). Harrison and Charlo are very familiar with one another having staged two battles back in 2018 and 2019. The first of these matches ended in a highly contested draw. Charlo stopped Harrison within the distance in the rematch. Even worse, as Harrison told the story to ThaBoxingVoice, their second bout was not the only thing that he lost to Charlo.
“I would love to fight Tim Tszyu, but it seems like Charlo keep getting all the mothafuckas that I want to get! Everybody that I would love to fight, he seems to get the mothafucking fight.”
WHAT YOU TALKING ABOUT HARRISON?
This seems a rather curious statement to make. Since Charlo fought Harrison in their rematch, he’s only faced two other opponents: Jeison Rosario and Brian Castano. The duel with Rosario stood as a unification because Rosario held the IBF and WBO straps. The Dominican had just lifted the pair of titles off of Julian Williams directly before dancing with Charlo.
After stopping Rosario, Iron Man went on to fight Brian Castano twice. After having to endure a frustrating draw, Charlo stopped Castano in the rematch to become undisputed. Therefore, coming off a loss to Charlo, it was highly unlikely that Harrison was going to get a title shot against Rosario. Similarly, there is no way that a bout with Super Bad was ever more appealing than a showdown for undisputed with Charlo.
This is all said to say, what fights did Charlo deny Harrison that he had a reasonable shot of getting in the first place? More than being blackballed, this appears to be the utterances of an enemy dumped on the wrong side of victory and the belts. In the end, Charlo is the king of the division and is facing one of his many mandatory’s in Tszyu. Super Bad is simply going to have to rack up more stripes than only beating Sergio Garcia in the last four years if he wants a shot at the top guys! So let’s see what tricks Tony Harrison has up his sleeve next and who he can corner in the ring.
By: Bakari Simpson
