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‘Why don’t you want to fight at 160?’: Jose Benavidez confronts Jermall Charlo during virtual press conference

Jose Benavidez pressed Jermall Charlo about why their upcoming fight is set for 163-pound catchweight when he’s the reigning WBC champion at 160.

Jose Benavidez will challenge Jermall Charlo, but not at 160 and not for his middleweight title.
Wil Esco is an assistant editor of Bad Left Hook and has been covering boxing for SB Nation since 2014.

As WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo readies himself for his return after a two-and-a-half year hiatus, he makes an appearance with Jose Benavidez for a virtual press conference.

And as unbelievable as it’s been that Charlo has been able to maintain his world title without a mandatory defense in years, it’s now been revealed that this return fight will be a non-title bout taking place at 163 lbs. Benavidez made sure to let Charlo hear about that when they spoke today.

“You’ve been training for a while,” Benavidez said. “Why don’t you want to fight at 160 then? There’s no discipline there, is there.”

“I fight at 160. I’m the champ at 160,” Charlo responded.

“Exactly. So why ain’t you fighting at 160?” Benavidez asked again.

Charlo didn’t have a direct response to that, but it kicked off a bit of banter between the two fighters for a short while until Brian Custer was able to bring things back to ‘parliamentary procedure.’

Check out the full opening press conference video in the link above.

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