Charlo stops Rosario in unification bout

The main event to close out the Showtime pay-per-view Saturday night doubleheader was a unification bout that featured Jermell Charlo taking on Jeison Rosario. What happened afterward changed the landscape at Super Welterweight, as Charlo scored the stoppage victory in the eighth round.

21 seconds of round eight is the official time of the TKO in the WBC/WBA/IBF Unification bout.

Charlo started the fight early with a knockdown of Rosario with a left hook that caught him on the top of his head. Rosario beat the count of referee Harvey Dock and continued. Both early on were looking to land haymakers on each other, which had there been fans in the “Fightsphere” of the Mohegan Sun Casino, would’ve gone nuts.

The gameplan for Rosario early on looked to be cutting off the ring and land shots on Charlo. What happened instead was: flurries of exchanges that showed that Charlo was getting the better of them early on. This worked well in the third round, as he was able to start attacking the body of Charlo.

After the knockdown of the first round, he looked to regain focus and also helped by the lack of output from Charlo.

Give @TwinCharlo the belts. UNIFIED CHAMP. #CharloDoubleheader pic.twitter.com/YwwEN0CMN3

— SHOWTIME Boxing (@ShowtimeBoxing) September 27, 2020

After a warning to Rosario by Dock for low blows, he looked to continue to cut the ring off, but was caught and knocked down again, with a left hook in the closing seconds to end the round.  He didn’t look to be steady ground as he headed into the corner.

And, once the eighth round started, it ended just as quickly as a left power jab to the stomach sucked the air and the life out of Rosario to end the fight give Charlo the WBA and IBF titles. Rosario from that shot was immediately rushed to the hospital as he was visibly in pain long after the fight was over.

Now that Charlo has three of the World Title belts at 154, where does he go from here will be seen?

Names that have been mentioned, but he doesn’t want to face again is Erickson Lubin, who became mandatory for the WBC portion that Charlo holds last weekend.