Jermall Charlo made a successful return.
The middleweight champ, fighting for the first time after a 2½-year layoff to deal with his mental health, defeated brave, but overmatched Jose Benavidez Jr. by a one-sided decision in a 10-round bout on the David Benavidez-Demetrius Andrade card Saturday in Las Vegas.
The official scores were 100-90, 99-91 and 98-92. Boxing Junkie scored it 99-91, nine rounds to one.
Charlo (33-0, 22 KOs) didn’t look rusty in spite of his hiatus, landing his always-excellent jab consistently and following with sharp combinations and single shots to dominate the fight.
Benavidez (28-3-1, 19 KOs) was the naturally much smaller man — he started as a 140-pounder — but he didn’t fight like it, attacking Charlo with some success throughout the fight and absorbing many huge shots without going down.
However, the older brother of David Benavidez ate too many clean shots to win rounds.
Charlo landed almost three times as many punches Benavidez overall, 243 to 86, according ot CompuBox.
The winner said he’s only getting started.
“I’ll be back stronger, just know that,” Charlo said. “I thought about everything that I’ve been through every round. God’s got me. I want to thank everybody who never left my side.”
The fighters agreed to a catch weight of 163 pounds but Charlo came in at 166.4. Benavidez decided to go through with the fight, presumably in part because Charlo had to add to his payday for him to do so.
Charlo hadn’t fought since he outpointed Juan Macias Montiel in June of 2021.
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