A showdown between Jermall Charlo and Demetrius Andrade, at least at one point, seemed inevitable. However, despite years of campaigning either in or near each other's weight class, the two have danced around one another.

Seemingly losing all hope, Andrade (32-0, 19 KOs) willingly forked over his WBO 160-pound title instead of defending his crown against Janibek Alimkhanuly. In doing so, the now 35-year-old opted to move up in weight and try his hand against larger men. Thus far, while it’s a small sample size, Andrade’s transition has been seamless.

On January 7th, at the Capital One Arena in Washington D.C., Andrade’s super middleweight debut went about as well as possible as he cruised to a unanimous decision victory over Demond Nicholson.

As Andrade continues to get acclimated to life in a new weight class, he’s still optimistic that a clash between himself and Charlo could come to fruition. In fact, instead of taking his normal approach of simply crossing his fingers and praying, Andrade picked up his cell phone and took legitimate action.

“He called me the other day,” said Charlo of Andrade to a group of reporters recently. “We talked for like an hour, just trying to get this shit done.”

With the two attempting to hammer out a deal behind the scenes, it’s unknown what Charlo’s immediate plans are. In just over a month, it will be two years since the hard-hitting star has defended his WBC middleweight title, a listless performance against Juan Macias Montiel in June of 2021.

Although an explanation for his meager schedule was a bit unclear, Charlo (32-0, 22 KOs) did reveal that he dealt with a nagging back injury, coupled with a number of personal issues as well. With the 32-year-old anxious to return, he admitted that he has a bit of unfinished business to attend to in the middleweight division.

If, however, a showdown against Andrade can be finalized, Charlo appears more fixated on going down that route. In the event that negotiations continue to go smoothly, Charlo would seemingly need at least one return fight in order to scrape the rust off his overall game. The notion of a warm-up bout, nevertheless, is something that Charlo wholeheartedly disagrees with.

“I’ll go straight into it.”