Jermell Charlo answered Brian Custer’s discomforting question as honestly as he could.

As much as he wants to see his long-inactive twin brother “bounce back,” the undisputed 154-pound champion couldn’t say with any certainty whether that will happen. Jermall Charlo is undefeated and still owns the WBC middleweight title, but the 33-year-old Houston native hasn’t fought since June 2021 and apparently passed on a shot at challenging Canelo Alvarez for his four 168-pound championships September 30 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Jermell Charlo, who happily accepted the high-profile Alvarez assignment Jermall Charlo declined, discussed his brother’s challenges during a wide-ranging interview with Custer for the Showtime broadcaster’s “The Last Stand” podcast.

“Man, you know, truthfully, I really don’t know if he’ll [bounce back],” Jermell Charlo told Custer for an episode of his podcast that was posted recently to YouTube. “I really don’t know, like cuz I’m not in his household. I don’t talk to him every day. You know, we kinda get into it like every other year, every year sometime. You know, we just never really seen eye to eye on certain things.”

Despite their differences, which Jermell Charlo has repeatedly referenced during the buildup toward his fight versus Alvarez, is pulling for Jermall Charlo to turn his career around.

“But, you know, I wish my brother the best,” Jermell Charlo continued. “I hope he bounce back. He got a family to feed, got a lotta children he gotta take care of and he got bills to pay and a life to live. So, you know, I don’t want it to be, when it’s all said and done, everybody coming in the family to ask me for some bread. They need to be goin’ to ask ‘Mall. You know?

“But I’mma do everything I can. In my moment, I gotta seize that, and this is it. So, if this is what I gotta go through, I gotta go through it. But I do wish him the best. I do hope he bounce back, but to answer that question is gonna be real tough for me to answer.”

Jermell Charlo didn’t specify what’s troubling Jermall Charlo, but Jermall Charlo acknowledged earlier this year that he has endured some mental health struggles during his lengthy layoff.

“When you live off of something that’s like, that make you have to bounce back, if you gonna bounce back, go ahead and bounce back and fight for that every day,” Jermell Charlo said. “Let that be your fight, so if anything wrong wit’ him it’s the fact that you kinda can’t get content wit’ havin’ the issue, [rather] than fixin’ the issue. And so, I think my brother is surrounded – who you surround yourself wit’, who is there in your ear, tryin’ to push you to get better or get off of that level that you at and put you back where you need to be.”

Mexico’s Alvarez (59-2-2, 39 KOs) is listed by most sportsbooks as a 4-1 favorite to defeat Jermell Charlo (35-1-1, 19 KOs) in their 12-round, 168-pound championship match later this month. Charlo has moved up two weight classes, 14 pounds in all, to challenge Alvarez in their Showtime Pay-Per-View main event.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.