Caleb Plant: record, next fight and profile →
Eddy Reynoso, head trainer of Mexican superstar Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, has not ruled out the possibility of his boxer returning to the ring before the end of the year. Canelo was scheduled to fight back in May, but the event was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
David Benavidez won’t allow losing his title to stop him from pursuing a grudge match with Caleb Plant. Benavidez gave up his WBC super middleweight title at the scale Friday, but he remains hopeful of facing Plant, the unbeaten IBF 168-pound champion. Phoenix’s Benavidez acknowledged after stopping Alexis Angulo on Saturday night, however, that he is uncertain if facing Plant is possible in the foreseeable future now that Benavidez doesn’t own a title.
David Benavidez considers a 168-pound title unification fight against Caleb Plant the most makeable, meaningful matchup for him in the foreseeable future. The 23-year-old Benavidez is further from the Plant fight than he would prefer due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The unbeaten WBC super middleweight champ just hopes to get through his optional title defense against Alexis Angulo on Saturday night and then his mandated defense versus Avni Yildirim as soon as possible, so that his showdown with Plant can be put together.
It takes two to tango, and Caleb Plant is looking for a viable dance partner for a super middleweight unification fight. One such scenario for Plant (20-0, 12 KOs), the IBF’s 168-pound champion, is to take on two-time WBC super middleweight titlist David Benavidez (22-0, 19 KOs).
Caleb Plant captured the IBF super middleweight championship in January 2019 when he defeated Jose Uzcategui. He’s since made two successful defenses of his title, scoring a TKO win over Mike Lee last June and a TKO win over Vincent Feigenbutz in February.
In February, Caleb Plant initially balked at the thought of fighting Canelo Alvarez in a quick turnaround fight in May because he felt that back-to-back camps would be physically taxing on his body.
Canelo Alvarez will have some catching up to do on the calendar as soon as coronavirus clears away. Boxing’s biggest breadwinner wants to return to the ring as soon as September, presumably for Mexican Independence Day weekend, and again in December, according to his coach and lifelong confidant Eddy Reynoso.
Daniel Jacobs has altered his rankings of super middleweight champions. After more consideration, the former IBF/WBA middleweight champ has listed WBO title-holder Billy Joe Saunders last among boxing’s four super middleweight champions. Jacobs initially called Caleb Plant the most beatable of those four champions during an Instagram Live interview with promoter Eddie Hearn late in March.
Caleb Plant and David Benavidez can only agree on one thing these days—the level of disdain they hold for one another. Yet, they can’t even agree neither on the starting point nor cause of their long-standing rivalry. The pair of unbeaten super middleweight titlists have spent the better part of the past 20 or months circling one another, more so once they both rose to the top of the division. Benavidez (22-0, 19KOs) claimed his first title in September 2017, making one successful defense before being stripped of his belt after a September 2018 random drug test showed cocaine in his system.
With his mandatory out of the way and virtually every major player on a level playing field these days, Caleb Plant is more than ready to revisit past business. The unbeaten super middleweight titlist was scrutinized for his being dismissive of what he considered a faux offer to face Mexico’s Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez (53-1-2, 36KOs) on relatively short notice. The question was posed to Plant mere minutes after his most recent title defense, a 10th round knockout of Vincent Feigenbutz this past February in a long-overdue homecoming in Nashville, Tennessee.