Regis Prograis offered an encouraging, if sober, update on his close friend, the middleweight titlist Jermall Charlo.

Charlo, the WBC beltholder, has not fought since June of 2021, when he outpointed Juan Macias Montiel over 12 rounds at the Toyota Center in Charlo’s hometown of Houston, Texas. His protracted absence from the ring has led to rampant speculation from boxing fans.  

In a recent interview, Prograis, the newly crowned WBC 140-pound titlist from New Orleans and childhood friend of Charlo, acknowledged that the middleweight has gone through a patchy period in his personal life that precluded him from gloving up. Prograis indicated that Charlo is in a much better place now, even if it appears that he is still dealing with certain issues.

“He still got personal stuff going on, bro,” Prograis told the YouTube channel Punsh Drunk Boxing. “You know what I’m sayin’? He got some hard, personal stuff going on. A lot of people talk about him but he goin’ through some stuff now. He definitely getting better and stuff like that but, like, the state that he was in, he didn’t need to fight. He just didn’t, bro. I know he’s the champion and all that type of stuff, but he’s got some personal stuff going on. I think he’s way better.

“He’s disciplined. He’s always training and stuff like that. I was just by his house not last week but the weekend before that. We all talk, he’s still training, and he getting better but everybody saw, bro … he had personal stuff going on, so he kinda had to figure that stuff out. He’s still going through a little bit but he way better right now.”

Charlo, who fights under Al Haymon's Premier Boxing Champions, would have fought last year, on June 18, against Poland’s Maciej Sulecki, but a back injury sustained during training forced the champion to pull out of the Showtime-televised main event. The fight was expected to be rescheduled but a new date never materialized.