Former National Golden Gloves champion and opponent of Jermell Charlo, Denis Douglin, has offered his prediction ahead of the upcoming ‘undisputed versus undisputed’ showdown with Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.
Douglin won the 2008 National Golden Gloves Middleweight Championship, ending his amateur career with a record of 95-9.
In 2009, ‘Momma’s Boy’ made the switch to the professional ranks and looked to be continuing on from his amateur success in the big leagues with twelve wins to begin his pro career.
However, in 2011 Douglin was matched up against Puerto Rico’s Doel Carrasquillo (14-17-1, at the time), where he was on the wrong side of an upset, losing out by third-round knockout.
Fourteen months later, after bouncing back from defeat with consecutive decision wins, Douglin was tasked with a 17-0 Jermell Charlo. He was knocked out in the fifth-round.
In an interview on Shawn Porter’s Podcast ‘The Porter Way’, Douglin said that he was put off by how Charlo is approaching the fight and believes that he should have a different mentality in order to defeat Canelo, similar to how Terence Crawford acted ahead of his contest with Errol Spence Jr.
“I hated his energy at the press conference. It just felt like, to me, no disrespect, he was happy to be there. I didn’t feel like I was listening to a winner.
He was like “I’m going to put on what I came to do, it’s going to be a hell of a fight”. I want that same energy that we just witnessed [from Spence-Crawford], when it was ‘I’m going to smoke this bud’, ‘I’m going to catch this big fish’, that kind of energy, that is what I want to see now.”
“I got this 75/25.”
Canelo and Charlo will go head to head on September 30 in Las Vegas live on Showtime PPV. No UK broadcaster has been announced as of writing.