LAS VEGAS – David Benavidez expects Caleb Plant to be elusive in the early rounds of their grudge match Saturday night.
The longer their fight goes, though, Benavidez anticipates a more stationary target that he’ll be able to break down and take out. Benavidez noticed during Plant’s 11th-round, technical-knockout loss to Canelo Alvarez and his 12-round, unanimous-decision win against Jose Uzcategui that a fatigued Plant faded during the later rounds.
The relentless Benavidez tends to keep up his high work rate, which led to late-round stoppages of former WBC super middleweight champ Anthony Dirrell, Alexis Angulo and Ronald Ellis. Plant brutally knocked out Dirrell in the ninth round of his last bout as well, but Benavidez doesn’t think the former IBF super middleweight champ can withstand his pressure and volume punching.
“It’s not really that he’s complicated,” Benavidez told BoxingScene.com. “It’s that the other people that he fights, they don’t really have power. You see what happens when he fights a guy with power. He’s very elusive. He starts out very fast. But towards the end of fights, in the second half of fights, he tends to start dying down. He gets hit with a lot of body shots.”
The 26-year-old Benavidez (26-0, 23 KOs) is one of the sport’s most consistent, punishing body punchers. That’s among the reasons that the younger WBC interim 168-pound champion is an approximate 3-1 favorite over Plant (22-1, 13 KOs), according to most sportsbooks.
Benavidez’s dislike for Plant is well documented, but that didn’t stop the Phoenix native from admitting that Plant is the most formidable opponent he will have faced in 27 professional fights.
Plant’s boxing IQ is high, and his skill and athleticism have enabled him to beat every opponent other than Alvarez (58-2-2, 39 KOs). Mexico’s Alvarez, their division’s undisputed champion, dropped Plant twice in the 11th round before their 168-pound title unification fight was stopped in November 2021 at MGM Grand Garden Arena.
“He is very elusive in the beginning,” Benavidez said. “But it’s my job to break him down. Even if he didn’t have any flaws in his game, my job is always to break him down, to find a way to break him down. There’s always a way to do everything. I’ve done it before and I’ve hurt everybody I’ve got in the ring with. You know, Caleb Plant is no different. He’s not bulletproof, so I know I can definitely hurt him.”
The 12-round bout between Benavidez and Plant, a native of Ashland City, Tennessee, is the main event of Showtime Pay-Per-View’s four-fight telecast from MGM Grand Garden Arena (9 p.m. ET; $74.99).
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
