After four successful defenses, Jermall Charlo vacated his junior middleweight world title last year to move up to the middleweight division and seek bigger money and bigger fights.
In his debut in the division, Charlo knocked out Jorge Sebastian Heiland in the fourth round of a one-sided fight in a July 29 title eliminator to establish himself as a mandatory challenger for unified world champion Gennady Golovkin. But with Golovkin headed toward a probable rematch with Canelo Alvarez on May 5, Charlo and Hugo Centeno Jr. were ordered by the WBC at its annual convention last year to meet for the organization's interim title.
Now the deal is done and the fight is set. Charlo and Centeno will square off March 3 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, in the co-feature of a card headlined by heavyweight world titleholder Deontay Wilder making his seventh title defense when he takes on Luis "King Kong" Ortiz.
Premier Boxing Champions formally announced the card Tuesday, although Wilder-Ortiz has been on the books and tickets have been on sale for two weeks.
"Jermall Charlo is strictly seek and destroy in the ring. That ferocious spirit made him a force at 154, and he has brought it with him to the 160-pound ranks," said Tom Brown, president of TGB Promotions, which is co-promoting the card with Lou DiBella. "Centeno is a rugged competitor, and he doesn't back down from anyone."
Charlo has been eager to get back in the ring since knocking out Heiland so easily.
"Since my last fight, I've had a chance to work on my patience and work on improvements to my game," said Charlo, the twin brother of junior middleweight world titleholder Jermell Charlo. "I've got the same feeling that I had before I won my first world title. I want to be a champion at 160 [pounds] more than I did the first time at 154. More than anything, I just want to get back in the ring."
As usual, Jermall Charlo is filled with confidence.
"Centeno is a tough fighter. He'll be a hard test for someone who isn't at my level," he said. "I'm not taking anything away from him, but he's just another fighter that's in my way. I don't feel like I have anything to prove to anyone else in this fight. I'm all about proving things to myself now. In the 160-pound division, you're hearing my name more and more. It's more than you did when I was at 154 pounds."
Charlo (26-0, 20 KOs), 27, of Houston, and his brother attended the Errol Spence Jr.-Lamont Peterson card at Barclays Center on Saturday night and were mobbed by fans. Charlo will be fighting at the arena for the second bout in a row.
"I really love fighting in Brooklyn and at Barclays Center," Charlo said. "The fans in Brooklyn always show me a lot of love."
Centeno (26-1, 14 KOs), 26, of Oxnard, California, has won two fights in a row since being stopped in the 10th round by undefeated Polish contender Maciej Sulecki in June 2016. It was the second of those two wins that gained Centeno attention, when he scored a sensational one-punch, third-round knockout of Immanuwel Aleem on Aug. 25.
"I'm excited for the opportunity," Centeno said. "I think my last outing had a lot to do with this. It helped to put me in this position. Charlo is a great fighter with a lot of talent. I feel like we have similar statures. It's going to be an interesting fight.
"I think it's going to come down to who is the smarter fighter that night and who has more left in the tank toward the end. This is a life-changing, career-changing fight for me that could lead to bigger and better things. I'm coming to win."
With the official announcement of the card, Wilder and Ortiz also spoke out about their fight, which was originally scheduled for Nov. 4 at Barclays Center but called off because Ortiz tested positive for two banned diuretics. Wilder, 32, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, went on to knock out late replacement and former titlist Bermane Stiverne in the first round that night while Ortiz watched at ringside.
Ortiz was later cleared by the WBC, which investigated the positive test and accepted Ortiz's claim that it was caused by medication he was taking to control high blood pressure. Ortiz returned Dec. 8 and knocked out Daniel Martz in the second round of a tuneup fight and then went nose to nose with Wilder (39-0, 38 KOs) in the ring as they pledged to reschedule the bout.
"I'm looking forward to returning to Barclays Center to defend my title for a seventh time," Wilder said. "Luis Ortiz is one of the toughest guys around, and he's supposed to be the bogeyman in the heavyweight division. But I've never been afraid of the bogeyman, and I've knocked out every opponent that I've faced. I plan on keeping that streak going. Everyone standing in my way of becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion has to go down. It's Luis Ortiz's turn."
Ortiz (28-0, 24 KOs), a 38-year-old southpaw fighting out of Miami, is aiming to become the first Cuban fighter to win a heavyweight world title.
"This really is the best versus the best as far as the heavyweight division, and everyone who knows boxing knows that," Ortiz said. "There's been too much talking already. It's time to fight. All I ask now is that the winner of this fight receives the respect from the other man, from the public, from the media and the fans that they deserve as the best heavyweight in the U.S."
The announcement of the card did not include any television information, which is highly unusual, especially because PBC does its major fights with Showtime. There has been talk that the card would air on CBS, Showtime's sister network, which has televised some major fights, such as last year's Keith Thurman-Danny Garcia welterweight unification fight, using Showtime's announcers and production under the title of "Showtime Championship Boxing on CBS."
Stephen Espinoza, the vice president and general manager of Showtime Sports, said the plan is to have the card on Showtime, but he hedged.
"That's our current plan," Espinoza told ESPN on Tuesday night.