Jermell Charlo is laser focused on the task at hand — defeating Brian Castano on Saturday night to become the first man in boxing history to attain undisputed world championship glory at junior middleweight during the modern four-belt era.
While the unified world WBA (Super)/WBC/IBF champ is locked in on that goal, chatter about possibly ushering Danny Garcia up to 154 pounds has made Charlo's purview. If he dons the undisputed crown come the wee hours of Sunday morning, Charlo would consider a prize fight with Garcia.
"We could definitely take a look into everything," Charlo told DAZN News earlier in the week when Garcia's name was broached. "I don't know what Al Haymon has in store, but he's the man with a master plan, so he helped me with making the best fights. We'll bring the best fights whenever we can. We'll try to face the best that we can."
And speaking on who's currently in front of him — Castano — and possibly as a caveat to Garcia if he makes the climb from 147 to 154 pounds, Charlo added:
"Danny Garcia is not in my way."
Garcia's name being thrown out there for a possible tilt against Charlo makes sense for a couple of reasons. Both are PBC fighters, counting Haymon as a special advisor. Also, Garcia has been talking about moving up from welterweight to test the junior middleweight waters for quite some time now. Late last month, Garcia told FightHype.com "I'd like to fight somebody at 154, get my feet wet and then, hey, if they offer me that (Charlo) fight, I'll take it. I'd fight him."
The 33-year-old Garcia has lost three of his last six fights at welterweight with the defeats coming at the hands of Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter and most recently Errol Spence Jr. in December. Still, Garcia's name carries weight in boxing with a tilt against Charlo being mutually beneficial in the sense that it would allow the Philadelphia fighter to make a legacy-building dent at 154 pounds and the Houston representative a chance to add another high-profile name to his boxing ledger.
When Charlo says that Haymon is "the man with a master plan" and that he's helped him make the best fights, there are stone-cold facts to back that up. After suffering his first pro loss via a controversial unanimous decision loss to Tony Harrison in December 2018, Haymon triggered Charlo's rematch clause and the "Iron Man" won back his WBC title with a rousing 11th-round TKO before a nationally-televised audience a year later.
From there, Haymon secured Charlo a unification bout with newly-minted WBA (Super)/IBF junior middleweight champion Jeison Rosario. Charlo flattened him with an eighth-round KO and hauled away two more titles in September. And now it's the final piece to the undisputed puzzle in the form of WBO titleholder Castano at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Tex. this weekend.
There, Charlo will strive to reach holy grounds in the form of being crowned undisputed. Only five men have achieved the feat during the four-belt era: Bernard Hopkins, Jermain Taylor, Terence Crawford, Oleksandr Usyk and Josh Taylor. Now, Charlo's fiery competitive edge has him on the doorstep on joining them.
"My competitive nature is wanting to be the best in everything I do," Charlo told DAZN News. "I just want to be competitive and win everything. I don't like to lose. I don't have a losing heart. I don't know where everyone else's competitive nature is, but to compete is to win.
"Maybe I'm already a household status," he added about his growing star power. "Maybe I'll catapult more into more of a Hall of Fame (status), winning the undisputed."
An undisputed championship defense against Garcia would only add to the boom.