The rematch between Tony Harrison and Jermell Charlo has been officially announced.
The two rivals are set to fight for the WBC junior middleweight title once more. This time, it will headline a PBC on Fox broadcast from the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas on June 23. The fight is a rematch of their first bout from December 2018 in Brooklyn, New York, which also was televised on Fox.
In that first bout, Harrison scored an upset victory over Charlo by a very narrow margin on the scorecards, winning with scores of 115-113, 115-113 and 116-112. The two fighters immediately called for a rematch, especially Charlo, who had aspirations of unifying the WBC title with Jarrett Hurd's WBA and IBF titles. With the loss to Harrison, both Charlo and Hurd chose other paths before they can think about making the three-belt unification a reality.
Harrison is in the midst of his first world title reign in the pro ranks. After losing to Hurd in 2017 for the then-vacant IBF title, Harrison worked his way back up to title contention with three straight wins leading up to his win over Charlo. Entering their matchup last December, Charlo was making his fourth world title defense.
Also announced for the Fox-televised card, set to start at 8 p.m. ET, is a WBC super bantamweight title eliminator between Guillermo Rigondeaux and Julio Ceja. The winner of the fight becomes the mandatory challenger to the WBC title currently held by Rey Vargas. A fight between the Rigondeaux-Ceja winner and Vargas will likely not take place for some time as Vargas is headed for a fight against interim titleholder Tomoki Kameda, though a date has yet to be revealed by the WBC.
After Rigondeaux lost a fight against Vasiliy Lomachenko in 2017 and subsequently stripped of his WBA "Super" bantamweight title, the Cuban star was inactive for more than a year. Rigondeaux returned to action in January when he knocked out Giovanni Delgado in the first round.
Ceja, a former interim super bantamweight titleholder, has won just two of his last four fights dating all the way back to 2016. Ceja once challenged for the IBF bantamweight title back in 2013 and the WBC super bantamweight title in 2016, but was unsuccessful in both attempts.