By Craig Daly: Jermall Charlo complained today about Showtime failing to give him a press conference or to announce his fight for next month against Jose Benavidez Jr. on November 25th on PPV at the Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas.
Assuming Charlo doesn’t pull out of the fight, he’ll be facing the 31-year-old Benavidez Jr. in the co-feature slow on the David Benavidez vs. Demetrius card on Showtime PPV.
It is interesting that Showtime hasn’t been talking about Jermall’s fight with Jose Benavidez Jr., but it’s obviously not a great one for such a highly visible card. By Showtime waiting, there’s less time for the boxing public to react negatively to the news and bad match it.
The fans who do know about the Jermall vs. Benavidez Jr. fight have had very little good to say about it because it’s an odd choice for Charlo.
He holds the WBC middleweight title, so there’s no point in him selecting a fringe contender from the 154-lb division for his comeback fight.
Better options for Jermall’s November 25th fight
- Jesus Ramos
- Austin Williams
- Israil Madrimov
- Erickson Lubin
- Denzil Bentley
- Janibek Alimkhanuly
No one is expecting Jermall to face his WBC mandatory challenger Carlos Adames in his first fight back from a 2.5-year layoff, but at the very least, he should face a middleweight instead of a guy from the 154-lb division, especially one that was shot in the leg in 2016 and hasn’t looked the same since.
“Showtime, they don’t do me no press conference. They don’t do nothing for me, and they ain’t told y’all I’m fighting yet,” said Jermall Charlo on social media, complaining about Showtime not announcing that he’d be fighting Jose Benavidez Jr. in the co-feature spot on next month’s David Benavidez vs. Demetrius Andrade card on Showtime PPV.
“I’m back. Is Showtime trying to boycott me or whatever? They haven’t told me when I’m fighting. I’ll be fighting on November 25th. You can judge me how you want, but I’ll be back on November 25th. I’m getting better every day,” said Jermall.
Why would Showtime invest money in doing a press conference for Jermall Charlo, given that he might pull out of the fight? Obviously, Showtime has its reason for not talking up the Jermall vs. Benavidez Jr. fight, but it makes sense for them not to invest a lot of energy into publicizing this match-up because there are too many ifs involved.
If Jermall was a rock-solid guarantee to make it to the fight without pulling out for this reason or that, and if he was facing someone with a pulse that would resonate with the boxing public, it would be logical for Showtime to do a press conference on the fight and start promoting it. Unfortunately, none of those things exist.
This match-up doesn’t excite the fans. On the contrary, it’s the equivalent of a repellant because it’s a cherry-pick on Jermall’s part, and he can’t be counted on to make it to the fight without backing out. Showtime has put on a lot of terrible PBC mismatches over the years, and this is just another one.
Jermall (32-0, 22 KOs) didn’t give any possible reasons why Showtime is “boycotting” giving him a press conference to announce his fight with the 31-year-old 154-pounder Benavidez Jr. (28-2-1, 19 KOs), but it could be that they’re taking a wait & see approach to make sure that he doesn’t pull out due to injury or whatever.
When a healthy fighter has been out of the ring for 2.5 years like Jermall, the natural thing for a network to do is to take a cautious approach and not waste a lot of time getting fans’ hopes up.
Benavidez Jr. is coming off a fifth round knockout victory over journeyman Sladan Janjanin last August. Before that, he was beaten by Danny Garcia by a 12 round majority decision.
