The only thing that was missing from a year to forever remember for Caleb Plant was a homecoming title defense.

It’s a part of his pro career that will change for the better in 2020.

The unbeaten super middleweight titlist will headline a February 15 card live on Fox from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, roughly 30 minutes from his hometown of Ashland City, Tennessee. An opponent has yet to be named for the occasion, but is in a place where it was deemed appropriate to share with the boxing world.

“Nashville, stand up,” exclaimed Plant (19-0, 11KOs), who now lives and trains in the greater Las Vegas area. “I’m coming home!”

Bridgestone Arena has served as a landmark for the downtown Nashville area, as home to the National Hockey League’s Nashville Predators. The venue seats more than 17,000 for hockey and up to 20,000 for concerts, although expectations are for a modified seating scale and reasonable prices to attract a healthy sports town but where significant boxing has been lacking for more than a decade.

Plant will make the second defense of the super middleweight title he acquired in a 12-round decision over perceived divisional boogeyman Jose Uzcategui this past January. The bout topped the first edition of the revamped PBC on FS1 series, landing as the most watched boxing event in network history.

The event was also commemorated by Plant proposing to soulmate Jordan Hardy (now the Fox Sports broadcast artist known as Jordan Plant) in his dressing room following the career-best win. The two were officially married this past October, with their ceremony held in Nashville.

It was previously hoped that a title fight would hit town by that point, as tentative plans were in place for Plant to face Chicago’s Mike Lee at Bridgestone Arena this past July. Talks never evolved beyond the preliminary stage, with the bout rerouted to Las Vegas as the Fox-televised lead in to a Fox Sports Pay-Per-View event topped by Manny Pacquiao’s 12-round title win over previously unbeaten Keith Thurman.

Plant stopped the overmatched Lee in three rounds live in primetime, from there moving on to wedding plans and of course the next steps in his career.

That next step is a significant one, with Plant fighting in his home state for the first time in his pro career.

The bout will mark the first title fight in Nashville among the “Big 4” sanctioning bodies (IBF, WBA, WBC, WBO) since a Showtime-televised doubleheader in July 1997, at this very venue though known simply as the Nashville Arena at the time. The show featured Cincinnati’s Tim Austin in a knockout win over Mbulelo Botilo to ignite a 5 ½ year bantamweight title reign. The show also featured Frankie Liles in one of his final super middleweight title defenses.

Nashville has since devolved into a club show kind of town, going a long way in explaining why Plant is the first-ever home grown champion from the area. The last pair of significant shows in town both took place in 2008, including an August 2008 ESPN-televised doubleheader at this venue—known as the Sommet Center at the time—featuring Fernando Beltran in a 12-round win over Takalani Ndlovu for the vacant IBO junior featherweight title.

The sparsely attended affair was followed by an HBO-televised event topped by a super middleweight scrap between 2000 U.S. Olympic boxing teammates and former titlists Jermain Taylor and Jeff Lacy. The event took place at Memorial Gymnasium, the home venue to the Vanderbilt Commodores’ college basketball teams.  

An opponent is still being sought for the event. Germany’s Vincent Feigenbutz currently serves as the mandatory challenger to Plant’s title. However, a deal is not yet in place, nor have PBC brass hinted at any particular leading candidate for the assignment as this goes to publish.

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox