By Adam Baskin: Jermall Charlo has put on a little size in the two years he’s been inactive, and judging by how he currently looks, it’s questionable whether he’ll fight again.
In a photo of Charlo posted this week on social media standing next to his twin brother Jermell, the 32-year-old Jermall looks to be in the neighborhood of 220+ lbs.
With the size Charlo is at now, it could prove impossible for him to trim that weight off to return to the sport. It will be difficult for Jermall to take that weight off in a reasonable amount of time.
While a fighter can melt down from the 200+ lb range to get to 160, it’s questionable whether Jermall can do it or even wants to. When you get big like that, it’s torture to take the weight off, and I’m not even beginning to talk about competing in professional sports at the world-class level. That’s why it’s important for athletes not to let themselves get that out of shape.
By how big Charlo has gotten, he looks like he’s been eating well, and I don’t know if he wants to deny himself the sustenance to get back to 160. Right now, Jermall looks a lot like Adrien Broner did when he first signed with BLK Prime and never fought once for them.
Wtf is this pic.twitter.com/4IqTkxNcap
— Makarov 🐈⬛ (@NationalThreatt) March 16, 2023
Surprisingly, Charlo (32-0, 22 KOs) hasn’t been stripped of his WBC middleweight title by the World Boxing Council, who have been more than tolerant of his 21 months of inactivity since his last title defense in 2021.
The WBC would be doing the contenders in their middleweight rankings a huge solid if they stripped Charlo of his belt because they can’t wait from here to eternity for him to lose all that size to make a defense of his strap finally.
It’s fair to say that the WBC would be relieving Jermall of the heavy burden of keeping his weight down to make annual mandatory defenses of his belt.
The WBC has to have given Jermall a time limit for how long they will permit him to sit on his middleweight title without defending it.
Typically, they give their inactive belt holders a ‘Champion in recess tag,’ which frees up the belt for other fighters to compete for it. For some reason, the WBC hasn’t done that with Charlo.