LOS ANGELES – Take a look at Jermall Charlo and think what you’d like to think.
Wasted talent?
The unbeaten two-division titleholder at age 35 is one year removed from a hit-and-run, driving under-the-influence arrest, and his last meaningful fight was nearly five years ago.
On the brink of a comeback for the ages?
Premier Boxing Champions has bent over backward to facilitate his rise. After years of assigning Charlo a series of soft touches to keep him reigning as WBC middleweight titleholder, the promotion has set him up with a May 31 date against New Jersey’s Thomas LaManna, 39-5-1 (18 KOs).
Win that 168lbs bout and he gets a crack at former IBF super middleweight titleholder Caleb Plant, who is similarly a comfortable favorite in his main event bout that night at Mandalay Bay’s Michelob Ultra Arena versus Jose Armando Resendiz on Amazon’s Prime Video.
In case you forgot, Plant delivered a hellacious slap to the jaw of Charlo when they crossed paths and exchanged unpleasantries during the Terence Crawford-Errol Spence Jnr fight week in July 2023.
On the stage recently at the Los Angeles news conference to formally announce the bout, Charlo said all the right things.
“It’s been a journey and a long time coming. I’m going up to 168 to make a statement. I’ve been focused and locked in. I wanna get this fight out of the way and possibly get it on with Caleb Plant. I have big plans in the works, so keep it locked in,” he said. “I just miss boxing, period. I miss getting up and just focusing on boxing, and I’m back to doing that at the highest level.
“The sky’s the limit for me at this weight. I’m sparring bigger guys and I can lift more now. I’m squatting more than I ever did and using my body more than I ever did. I feel like this is the division I’m gonna end my career in. You’re gonna see me go out and be more explosive than you’ve ever seen me before in my life.”
All of that is the hope.
Of course, life and malaise and excuses have sabotaged Charlo’s prior best intentions.
This time, he undoubtedly can hear the clock ticking and can feel the financial pain of missing out previously on a shot at undisputed super middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, who will need an opponent in May 2026 if he succeeds in his mid-September showdown with fellow four-division champion Crawford.
Charlo’s literal recklessness saw him fall out of consideration for an Alvarez bout last year as Mexico’s popular pay-per-view star instead chose to lavish Edgar Berlanga with millions.
Yet should Charlo revert to a form of his prior self May 31, and then defeat Plant, that shoots him close to the front of the line with the compelling storyline of avenging the 2023 loss of his twin brother and former undisputed 154lbs champion, Jermell Charlo, to Alvarez in September 2023.
How does he get back there?
“Going back to your craft, going back to wanting to be great again – I’ve got the best jab because I keep re-learning it,” Charlo said.
From Charlo’s standpoint, his downfall was a self-induced spiral.
When it comes to readying himself for a fight, no man has yet proved superior to the Houston product, who emulated the late world champion Vernon Forrest in the gym and trained for years under distinguished cornerman Ronnie Shields.
“Yeah, the WBC president [Mauricio Sulaiman] took the belt from me. Nobody beat me for it,” Charlo said.
“I was going through hell at the time. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. I literally stayed home at my mansion for a week or two and literally wouldn’t leave. Maybe one meal I cooked myself per day. I dealt with that dark place myself. I didn’t make an excuse about it. I’m a man about it.”
Rock bottom is a powerful motivator.
“This is what I love to do, so I’m going back to the things I love,” Charlo said.
He can envision a path loaded with success, going as far to say, “This Jermall Charlo beats Canelo. That’s the fight to end my career. I’m comfortable now. I’ve made my mistakes and I paid for them, but nothing was ever weak about me.
“I have a boxing gym at my house. That’s something I kept doing, [thinking], ‘I’m going to bounce back.’ Then I’d have a fallback. Y’all know how things go. There’s ups and downs in life. It’s all about how you bounce back. One thing I can say is that I’m back, and May 31, I’m going to show y’all.”
The ultimate incentive: reigning as a champion again, and earning the shot at Alvarez. It’ll take defeating LaManna and interim WBA titleholder Plant to get there.
During a quiet moment after fighter introductions in L.A., Plant stepped to Charlo, not to punch him, but to discuss their mutual intentions.
“We’re not going to blow the bag,” Charlo told Plant. “We’ve got to fight.”
“There’s pressure on me,” he later told an assemblage of reporters. “I’m coming back from being inactive. There’s a little more hostility about Jermall Charlo. I’m more emotional about what I do. I [rank] my undefeated record [as more meaningful] than my inactivity. I come to win.”
Charlo, 33-0 (22 KOs), said the fuel that has long motivated his boxing success is the sense of accomplishment.
Sharing that with Jermell, who is preparing for his own return, has been a reinvigorating trip back in time, reuniting with the hunger that made them world champions on the same night in 2016.
“When you hear the clapping [in the gym] and the encouragement of, ‘Yeah, you did good,’ you’re hearing that from people who really love you, the people that really mean it. And that’s something I really needed.”
Back then, the promise seemed limitless.
Delayed now, there’s still time to fulfill the mission.
Those thoughts came upon Charlo as he self-reflected during that period spent in his self-described “dark hole.”
However fully he’s emerged from that will be revealed in the ring, but, behind clear eyes, with a deep, determined glare, Charlo came clean in detailing how he lifted himself to this newfound, redemptive place in the world.
“I didn’t say anything to myself. I just kept looking at myself. You know how you get hoarse by talking? I got hoarse by not saying anything,” Charlo told BoxingScene. “I forgot how I sounded. I just looked at myself and decided, ‘This is not what I want to be.’
“That thought just kept running: ‘This is not who I’m supposed to be, not what I’m supposed to be doing.’ Let’s get up, let’s go get it, forget that.’ I got on my knees and started praying. That’s it.”
And here he is.
Think what you want.