Jermall Charlo fought his way back home to end his final break from the ring.
The Ring has confirmed that the former two-division champion will return to the ring on December 14. Charlo (33-0, 22 knockouts) will appear on Gervonta “Tank” Davis-Lamont Roach PBC’s Prime Pay-Per-View event at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.
At the time of publication, the adversary had not yet been identified. However, The Ring learned that the main candidate is Thomas “Cornflake” LaManna (38-5-1, 17 KO). Such a fight would take place at the full super middleweight limit.
PBC creator Al Haymon was trying to replace the injured Nico Collins on his NFL Fantasy Football team, but was unable to comment on the situation.
Houston’s Charlo will be out of the ring for just over a year before fight night. He ended a 29-month absence from the ring on November 25 last year in Las Vegas with a ten-round victory over Jose Benavidez Jr. (28-3-1, 19 KOs). Charlo did not make the set weight for the fight, reaching a career-high 166.4 pounds.
This will mark his second fight in a row in the super middleweight division. Charlo already held the IBF junior middleweight and WBC middleweight titles.
Previous rumors claimed that Charlo would potentially face fellow former two-division titleholder Demetrius Andrade. However, The Ring confirmed that these were false hopes and that such a match was never included in the budget for the Davis-Roach undercard.
Charlo’s last home fight came in June 2021, when he scored over Juan Macias Montiel (23-6-2, 23 KO). The fight also took place at the Toyota Center and was the fourth and final defense of his WBC middleweight title.
Personal problems forced a longer break from the ring. Along with this, plans to defend the title against Maciej Sulecki in June 2022 in this place were canceled.
Charlo was ultimately cleared from the WBC 160-pound fight due to his inability to defend against interim champion and mandatory challenger Carlos Adames (24-1, 18 KO). Charlo has been given the title of “Hi-time Champion”, although he is not expected to return to middleweight.
If this fight takes place, it will be LaManna’s third career fight above 160 pounds.
The 32-year-old from southern Modern Jersey has won eight straight since a knockout loss to Erislandy Lara in May 2021. The fight will feature a secondary version of the WBA middleweight title. Since then, Lara has landed a full slate of titles, and LaManna is planning a comeback.
In his last appearance, LaManna scored a second-round knockout of normally fit Juan Carlos Abreu (26-8-1, 24 KOs). Their clash took place on June 8 in LaManna’s home region of Atlantic City.
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