By Declan Taylor
JERMALL CHARLO can still remember vividly the moment when the cloud lifted.
“I was at home on my own,” he tells Boxing News. “In a 50,000 square foot mansion, sitting there by myself, no TV on, no books, no video games or anything. I was just sitting there hoping.
“I remember I fell asleep praying and when I woke up, I just knew that I wanted to do the right thing, that I was going to do it… and now I’m back.”
You’d be forgiven for thinking that route to recovery may sound very simplistic for a man who has been rendered unable to box for a little under 30 months by mental health problems punctuated by alcohol, drug use and suicidal thoughts.
But the truth is, the 33-year-old twin has been fighting a battle outside of the ring far more challenging than any of his 32 opponents to date.
“It’s almost like you go from eating a feast with your family and then you just wake up from a nap and you’re starving again,” he explains. “You know what I mean?
“I have no appetite, I don’t have the ability to eat or take care of myself. There were moments when I just had to listen to the close people around me. They were saying: ‘man, you’re just not doing good right now’.
“After I beat Montiel in June 21, I never expected a lay-off like this. It was shocking to me too, I didn’t want to. I went and put myself away… away from everybody. I wasn’t talking to my family, I wasn’t talking to nobody. I just didn’t know what was going on with me or my atmosphere so I thought the best thing for me was to stay in my own present place and that’s what I did.
“It was something I just had to face and I faced it.”
Charlo is then asked if he has managed to establish the root of the problem at a time when he seemingly had it all; money in the bank, an enviable undefeated record, a world title at middleweight and a reputation as one of the most prominent faces in the sport. He pauses for a moment.
“After that Montiel fight I only took a couple of months off,” he says eventually. “Then I got right back into training and that might have been too soon for me. That was when the problems started getting a bit more curated.
“Then when I was getting ready for my next fight, I got an injury and I was going through so much at one time. Then it was more stuff and you start seeing mugshots, all sorts of shit. I’m getting arrested for this, I’m getting blamed for this, getting sued for this.”
The mugshot of which he speaks came in February of last year when Charlo was arrested for assault in Texas and booked at the Fort Bend County Jail on ‘a felony charge of assaulting a family/household member with a previous conviction’. His attorney Kent Schaffer described the arrest as a ‘shakedown’ but the whole incident was indicative of the turmoil in Charlo’s private life.
“I was overwhelmed with a whole bunch at one time,” he adds. “And then family issues started appearing. It was non-stop and the ball just wouldn’t stop rolling. It took me to just sit down with myself and realise things don’t have to be this way and that I’m making myself go through this. I had to separate myself from certain people and certain times and get back.”
So did it ever feel like he would never box again?
“I considered it at one time that I might never make it back in the ring,” he admits. “I had a lot of crazy thoughts, man. A lot of crazy thoughts… like a lot.
“It was relentless, it was so relentless that I got that word tattooed on me, because that’s how disturbing it was for me at that moment. That’s exactly how it felt when I was going through that – it was so relentless.
“But I kind of got myself through that in a way where I felt free again and I felt like a calm was coming, and that everything was calming down. I can honestly tell you it was God. And that was the day I fell asleep praying.”
Once his mind felt right, it was not too long before he started to think about boxing once more. It was presented to Charlo that he might fight Jose Benavidez Jr this weekend in Las Vegas as the chief support to David Benavidez’s clash with Demetrius Andrade. He agreed.
“The fact is I miss it,” Charlo says. “I miss it every day.
“I saw my brother take on Terence Crawford, I was watching it and I didn’t feel like that energy was there for me but I’ve got my energy back now. I feel a lot better but at that time it was low. I missed it a lot but I needed the separation and time away.
“This wasn’t about the opponent, it was more so like ‘do you want to fight?’ I’m ready, training and getting myself back. I had been training in Pensacola with Roy Jones, just trying to get myself back in the mode of boxing, watching my brother fight, watching Errol [Spence] fight, just brought my hunger back to life.
“I feel back to myself, squared everything away, me and my family are good, everything is straight. I’m back to normal, back to the old Jermall that you’ve all seen. I just want to make sure I stay that way and fighting is one thing that helps me do that so I’m back.”
This will be Charlo’s second visit to Vegas in the last two months following his late September trip to watch his twin brother Jermell face Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez in what was the biggest fight either of them has been involved in. The twins had been estranged to such an extent that they had not spoken for months in advance but they came back together at the T-Mobile Arena in a reconciliation of sorts. It has been far from happy families since then, however.
“Me and my twin brother are OK,” he says. “He’s living his happy ever after life and I am too. We will leave it at that.
“We haven’t really seen each other much since the fight, matter of fact I haven’t seen him since the day he fought. But I have spoken to him so that’s a little bit more progress.
“But that was all part of the separation and a part of me finding myself; not to be so focused on what my twin brother had going on in his life. And I didnt want to bring him down with what I have going on in my life.”
Now, with or without his twin, there looks like brighter days ahead for Charlo.
