By Sean Jones: David Benavidez has called out Jermall Charlo for a fight in September after hearing him comment about wanting to fight.
The former WBC super-middleweight champion Benavidez (23-0, 20 KOs) views the Charlo (31-0, 22 KOs) as a huge match-up and believes he’ll knock out the former two-division world champion.
Charlo, 30, says he’s moving up to 168, and he wants to get a piece of the action with the division becoming one of the hottest in boxing. Jermall currently holds the WBC middleweight title, but he’s not able to get important fights.
If Charlo moves up to 168, he can take on Benavidez, and the winner would then put pressure on Canelo Alvarez, Caleb Plant, and Billy Joe Saunders.
Charlo doesn’t need to fight Benavidez right away. He can face Daniel Jacobs first to get acclimatized to the 168-pound division. Then if Charlo beats Jacobs (37-3, 30 KOs), he can battle Benavidez.
There would be a lot of fan interest in a match between Charlo and Jacobs, as the two have a history of trash-talking back and forth.
It would be good for them to finally fight before Jacobs, 33, bows out of the game. Jacobs’ last fight against Gabe Rosado showed that he’s nearing the end of his career. After Jacobs’ controversial 12 round split decision over Rosado, he needs to redeem himself. What better way to do that than to take on Charlo
“We can make it happen in September if you’re really about it @Futureofboxing,” said David Benavidez on social media in calling out Jermall Charlo.
Charlo, 6’0″, has the size of a 168-pounder, and he looked terribly drained in making weight for the last defense of his WBC 160-lb title against Sergiy Derevyanchenko in September.
Jermall needs to move up to 168 before he eventually takes a loss. He’s getting diminishing returns in draining down to 160 each time he fights. More importantly, there’s no one for Charlo to fight.
Matches against Gennadiy Golovkin, Demetrius Andrade, Ryota Murata, and Chris Eubank Jr have failed to happen.
Sure, Jermall can stay at 160 and wait to see if one of those fights eventually falls in his lap, but he can’t afford to wait the rest of his career.
“That would be a big fight. I would love to fight Charlo,” said Benavidez to ESNEWS. “He says he will knock me out, but I’m going to knock him out.
“Whenever he wants. I think it would be a great fight. People would love to see that fight, so I’m all for it.
Charlo needs to step up already and fight with Benavidez rather than talk about it. It’s a big fight that will help Jermall pave the way for a mega-payday against Canelo in the future.
If nothing else, it’ll put pressure on Canelo to fight Charlo. Staying at 160 will mean that Charlo will likely continue to make title defenses against fighters that fans have no interest in seeing him fight.
The fact that Charlo’s last match against Derevyanchenko did respectable numbers on PPV shows what kind of potential Jermall has.
If Charlo can do that against a lesser-known fighter like Derevyanchenko, imagine what he could do if he started to fight guys like Canelo, Benavidez, Plant, Saunders, and Edgar Berlanga.
“Jermall Charlo, if you’re watching this. I know you did an interview where you said you would knock David out,” said Benavidez’s father/coach Jose Benavidez.
“I think that would be an easy fight to make. You want a fight; we want a fight. F*** Caleb Plant. f*** Canelo. We can make the fight happen,” said Benavidez.
Hopefully, Jermall can finally make that leap by coming up to 168 to chase the bigger fights against Benavidez and Canelo. Staying at 160 would mean that Charlo would spend the remaining time as the WBC champion facing mediocre contenders in the World Boxing Council’s top 15 rankings.
Indeed, Charlo can probably hold onto his WBC title for the next six years with the way the WBC is ranking contenders, but he won’t be involved in any big fights during that time.