Jose Benavidez Jr. lambasted Jermall Charlo for fighting him at a catch weight rather than in a 12-round, 160-pound championship match.
Benavidez revealed Tuesday during a vitriolic virtual press conference that the contract weight for the long-inactive WBC middleweight champion’s return to the ring is 163 pounds, three pounds above the middleweight limit. The Charlo-Benavidez bout was announced last Wednesday, but the contract weight wasn’t mentioned in a press release issued by Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions and Showtime, which will distribute the pay-per-view show for which Charlo-Benavidez will be the co-feature before David Benavidez meets Demetrius Andrade in the 12-round, 168-pound main event November 25 in Las Vegas.
“It’s at 163 because this guy had to make up excuses that he couldn’t make the weight,” Benavidez said. “So, he was going through some hard times, I guess, so he can’t make the weight. So, we have to go at ’63. So, you ask him about that. The boy’s not disciplined. The boy’s not disciplined, so it is what it is.”
The 33-year-old Charlo, who has drawn criticism for remaining champion despite an unusually long period of inactivity, has never weighed in at more than the middleweight limit of 160 pounds for any of his 32 professional fights. Benavidez’s heaviest weight was 158¾ pounds, but he has boxed above the junior middleweight maximum of 154 pounds only twice in 31 appearances as a pro.
Charlo (32-0, 22 KOs) indicated that he could be done as a middleweight and might move up to the 168-pound division for his following fight if David Benavidez beats Andrade. When pressed by a reporter, Charlo contended that he could still get down to 160 pounds.
“It’s got nothing to do with weight or nothing like that,” Charlo said. “Man, I’m a professional. You know, coming back, I’m about to fight this little steppingstone right here. And then whenever I finish stepping on this stone, then I guess we can put the title on the line or whatever. If not, I’mma go up to ’68. You know what I’m saying? I ain’t worried about the trophies. I’m still the champ. You know what I’m saying? No matter what.”
The 31-year-old Benavidez (28-2-1, 19 KOs) is 1-1-1 in his past three fights and isn’t ranked among the WBC’s top 15 middleweight contenders. Those are among the reasons Charlo-Benavidez isn’t sanctioned as a fight for Charlo’s WBC 160-pound crown.
The Charlo-Benavidez bout was billed during the virtual press conference Tuesday as “a WBC special event,” which was not explained.
Charlo won’t have fought for 29 months by the time he enters the ring to battle Benavidez at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino’s Michelob ULTRA Arena. His last fight took place in June 2021, when he defended his WBC belt by winning a tougher-than-anticipated unanimous decision over Mexican contender Juan Macias Montiel (23-6-2, 23 KOs) at Toyota Center in Houston.
Charlo was scheduled to make another optional defense of his WBC championship in June 2022 at Toyota Center, but his fight against Poland’s Maciej Sulecki (31-2, 12 KOs) was canceled, reportedly due to a back injury Charlo suffered while doing road work. More than a year later, he turned down a lucrative opportunity to move up from 160 pounds to the 168-pound division for a pay-per-view showdown with undisputed super middleweight champ Canelo Alvarez.
The former IBF junior middleweight champ’s twin brother, Jermell Charlo, instead moved up two classes to challenge Alvarez. Guadalajara’s Alvarez (60-2-2, 39 KOs) easily defeated Jermell Charlo, who entered the ring as boxing’s undisputed 154-pound champion, by unanimous decision in their 12-rounder September 30 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Benavidez has won only one fight in the five years since his 12th-round, technical-knockout defeat to undisputed welterweight champion Terence Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) in October 2018 at CHI Health Center in Crawford’s hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.
Benavidez settled for a 10-round majority draw with Argentinean underdog Francisco Torres (17-4-1, 5 KOs) in November 2021 at Footprint Center in Phoenix. He lost his subsequent bout, a 12-round junior middleweight match, by majority decision to former junior welterweight and welterweight champ Danny Garcia (37-3, 21 KOs) in July 2022 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Benavidez beat journeyman Sladan Janjanin (37-17, 26 KOs) by fifth-round TKO in his last fight, which took place August 12 at MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.