Jermall Charlo (33-0, 22 KOs) says he wasn’t impressed with the “sloppy” performance put in by David Benavidez with his sixth round stoppage win over Demetrius Andrade (32-1, 19 KOs) last Saturday night at the Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas.
The 26-year-old Benavidez looked fleshy and considerably heavier than his opponent Andrade. The ‘Mexican Monster’ had the appearance of someone who had put on a massive amount of water weight in a short period and overdone it.
That happens when a fighter tries to rapidly put water back into their system after they’ve drained down 20+ lbs and need to get the H20 back into their cells as quickly as possible. They end up looking slightly bloated.
Although Benavidez (28-0, 23 got the win, he was sloppy with his feet, says Jermall. He didn’t see a lot of big power shots from Benavidez in the fight, but he did notice that he was putting a lot of pressure him on Andrade.
Indeed, Benavidez didn’t look good, mostly because he was facing a guy with so much talent and wasn’t ready for it.
Jermall didn’t like the way that Andrade stayed on the outside so much, and he didn’t come forward to make a fight of it. Of course, Andrade is 38, fighting in his third weight class and fighting in a division too big for him.
Charlo said in the post-fight interview that he would like to fight Canelo Alvarez, as he was the one that he was supposed to fight last September, not his twin brother Jermell.
Andrade didn’t box the way he should
“I really thought Boo Boo was going to outbox him, but his plan was different. I can’t go in there and fight for him,” said Jermall Charlo at the post-fight press conference reacting to David Benavidez’s win over Demetrius ‘Boo Boo’ Andrade in the main event tonight.
Jermall saw what everyone saw. The 35-year-old Andrade wasn’t careful enough with the punches he did through to avoid being in the line of fire for Benavidez’s heavy-handed machine-gun-like return fire.
Most would agree if Andrade had followed the blueprint created by Caleb Plant to throw pinpoint single shots to the head of Benavidez and then move quickly away, he would have had better success in the fight.
Andrade was making a mistake by throwing combinations, focusing on landing to the body, which put in the target range for the fleshy-looking cruiserweight-sized Benavidez.
“He stayed on the outside for too long, and he never pushed David back. To me, the feet was very sloppy on both of the fighters. They did a lot of clashing. I look at boxing like the dominating shot.
“I didn’t really see crazy dominating shots. I did see David put a lot of pressure on Boo Boo. Not to take nothing away from David’s win. He did awesome, but I wasn’t crazy impressed by him. It was a good fight though,” said Jermall about Benavidez.
It’s pretty obvious that Benavidez’s shots didn’t look that powerful compared to other fighters at 168, 175, or 200-lb weight classes, but Andrade isn’t a true super middleweight. He’s a fighter who fought most of his career at 154, and he didn’t look strong at 160 and was like a fish out of water at 168, and an old one at that.
“Pick me,” said Jermall in his message for Canelo Alvarez. “I know y’all saw him fight my twin, but it’s a different twin when they fight me. I’m not bashing anything my brother did. He dared to be great, jumping up two weight classes to fight Canelo.
“Technically, that was my time to shine, but I wouldn’t have felt that good going into that fight like I did tonight. Canelo is on a whole other level than Benavidez. So, I think that fight would have made me get up for it. I really wasn’t motivated.
“I told him, ‘I beat your a**. There’s nothing you could do. I beat your a**,” said Jermall on what he said to Jose Benavidez Jr. after the fight when he spoke to him. “Then he came back to the locker room and said, ‘Yeah, you beat my a**.’ I told you. It was cool,” said Charlo.
Jose Benavidez Jr. was way out of his class fighting Jermall, and it was as bad as the Benavidez-Andrade fight in terms of a fighter being too small, weak and lacking in talent to pull off the upset.
The 31-year-old Benavidez Jr. began his career at 140 and enjoyed most of his success in that weight class before slowly moving up to 147 and 154. Benavidez Jr didn’t belong in the ring with a true middleweight like Jermall Charlo, and didn’t matter that he looked trim & in shape.
He didn’t have the power or ability to fight a talented, stronger middleweight like Jermall in their 163-lb catchweight fight. Jermall coming in 3.4 lbs overweight at 166.4 lbs wasn’t why Benavidez Jr. lost the fight.
He wasn’t gifted enough, and his chin couldn’t handle the bombs that Charlo was hitting him with, so he went into the safety first mode in the second half of the fight.
Jose Jr. wanted to survive the distance on his feet; hence, he played it safe and stopped trying to win rather than going all out and being willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice by going out on his shield.