Jermall Charlo wasn't trying to make a comical comparison for the sake of promoting their fight when he mentioned Thomas LaManna in the same sentence as Tyson Fury.

The former WBC middleweight champion simply meant that LaManna's body type resembles that of the flabby Fury, the legendary heavyweight who always carried a little extra weight around his midsection. LaManna didn't look soft when he stepped on the scale at 166.6 pounds Friday afternoon in Las Vegas, though wasn't sculpted like Charlo, either.

The 6-foot-1 LaManna will compete above his preferred weight of 160 pounds when they square off Saturday night at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino's Michelob ULTRA Arena.

Charlo is a 12-1 favorite to defeat LaManna, who is mostly remembered for his one-punch, first-round knockout loss to Cuban southpaw Erislandy Lara in their fight for Lara's WBA middleweight title in May 2021 at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.

LaManna (39-5-1, 18 KOs), of Millville, New Jersey, has won nine straight fights since Lara landed a single left hand to suddenly end their 160-pound championship match. Charlo remains undefeated and is surely several levels above any opponent LaManna beat during his winning streak.

Houston's Charlo (33-0, 22 KOs) will fight for the first time in 18 months and only the third time since September 2020. While mindful of LaManna's boxing ability, a confident Charlo expects to knock out an opponent who wasn't known as a puncher when he fought in the junior middleweight and middleweight divisions.

"LaManna can beat somebody regular," Charlo told The Ring. "I'm not regular. But I feel like he has some good attributes. He's a tall, heavier guy. Not super like muscled and all that good stuff. A little like loose around the edges, but he can box. It's almost how a lotta people overlook Tyson Fury. He don't look good but can box, been boxing all his life."

"And that's kinda like LaManna. I'm looking at it like he gonna come to fight. And if I put it in my head that I'm just gonna walk over him and just do this and do that, I won't train the way I trained. I won't get up for this fight.”

Charlo can't afford to overlook LaManna because he needs to win to set up a showdown with rival Caleb Plant later this year. Plant (23-2, 14 KOs), a former IBF super middleweight champ, is a 20-1 favorite to beat Mexico's Armando Resendiz (15-2, 11 KOs) in the 12-round main event Saturday night.

Plant-Resendiz and Charlo-LaManna will be streamed to Amazon’s Prime Video subscribers. Undercard coverage is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. ET (1 a.m. GMT).

The 35-year-old Charlo came in at a career-high 167.4 pounds Friday, but the former IBF junior middleweight champ feels fresher and stronger at a higher weight. He is also motivated to prove he can be one of the top competitors in the super middleweight division, even after various personal issues interrupted his career.

"I'm moving up in weight," Charlo said. "I'm not fighting for no belt. I'm fighting for just legacy. This ain't no payday. I’m gonna just go in there and fight."