If Jermall Charlo considered Thomas LaManna the easy mark many dismissive skeptics have labeled him, the former WBC middleweight champion wouldn't have trained this hard for their super middleweight fight Saturday night.

Charlo told The Ring that he prepared for his 10-round match with LaManna as if his career hangs in the balance. The Houston native knows he needs to win impressively if he is to re-establish some momentum for a higher-profile fight with Caleb Plant.

If Charlo (33-0, 22 KOs) beats LaManna (39-5-1, 18 KOs) and Plant (23-2, 14 KOs) defeats another big underdog, Mexico's Armando Resendiz (15-2, 11 KOs), in the 12-round main event Saturday night, the former champions and rivals have both stated they want to fight each other later this year.

The 35-year-old Charlo realizes, though, that LaManna has also been granted an opportunity to redeem himself four years after the Millville, New Jersey native’s first-round knockout loss by Cuban southpaw Erislandy Lara (31-3-3, 19 KOs) in their middleweight title fight.

“He’s trying to [avenge] his losses,” Charlo said. “I’m a Super Bowl fight for him. He’s fittin’ to come to bring havoc and I’ll be trim ready for it.”

DraftKings lists Charlo as a 12-1 favorite to win his first fight in 18 months. The former IBF junior middleweight champ last boxed in November 2023, when he comfortably out-boxed Jose Benavidez Jr. (29-3-1, 20 KOs) on his way to winning their 10-rounder by unanimous decision.

Charlo will return to the same venue where he beat Benavidez – Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino’s Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas – to battle LaManna in a co-feature Amazon’s Prime Video will stream to its subscribers. He will encounter an undoubted underdog, yet an opponent confident from the nine-fight winning streak the 33-year-old veteran has strung together since Lara landed a left hand that abruptly ended their May 2021 bout for Lara’s WBA 160-pound crown at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.

“I’ll be a fool to try to overlook him,” Charlo said. “That’s not what I’m doing. I’m Jermall Charlo. This is my legacy. This is my career. I’m putting it all on the line. Now I understand why Canelo and them, all the big names, GGG at the time I was at 160, I see why they would say, ‘High risk, low reward.’ But I’m not that saying towards LaManna in no type of combative way. I’m just saying, naturally, me beating him in fashion and doing what I do best, get out there and win the fight, I probably won’t get the thumbs up and the likes from the fans. It’s gonna be expected.

“If I go in there and make it a fight and make it tough and something crazy happens in the fight, then they’ll be like, ‘Oh, he’s not Jermall Charlo no more.’ So, the pressure is on me to be who I am. I’m not overlooking LaManna. He has some skill. He has experience, too. He just never been in there with anybody like me.”