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Remember when a ginger haired kid fought the great Mayweather? The kid had some experience for sure, but had not been in many big fights, and it was hard to imagine him beating Mayweather at the time... That kid did pretty well, had some success, but at the end of the day Mayweather dominated Canelo that night...
Plant is around 6 years older than Canelo was that night... but still has some years to really peak... I feel like Plant did a superb job. He managed to hang in there and be competative... to a point. I think he showed his defensive chops and most important: I think Plant will do a lot better if he manages to learn some essential things about why he lost: Canelo is Canelo... but a great fighter does not let that fatalism influence their confidence.
1) If your only playing defense, what incentive is there for the other guy to back off? Interestingly enough... Plant backed Canelo off and snapped his head back with his jab... meaning essentially that Plant had the ability to hit Canelo and back him up. The greatest defensive wizards pick their spots... they make the puncher hurt... like Whitaker did to Chavez for example. Plant has the power he has got to know when to use it. He got Canelo's respect, but not enough to make Canelo think twice coming forward. You can't just back up an entire fight...
2) Waterloo comes in different flavors: You don't want to be General Custer... Or the British division that learned "Hey those Zulu's actually use those sticks to great advantage against these guns!" when things are going south Take your shot, go out on your terms! Plant lacked one essential Coda for this fight: the last act... when Canelo was getting to him, when he made it into the championship rounds, or even I would say, the tenth round...he should have went at Canelo with his own left hook, or at least made Canelo have to counter him for the KO. He had to make a stand and fight... inexperience told him, "no adjustments needed" when in fact, all he had to do was look at great defensive fighters who had to teach a puncher to mind their manners! I mean Holmes hitting Shavers, Leonard firing back against Hagler... Caleb needed to take that chance! He needed to take a stand, and look at the fight as building to that point where his job was to try to hurt Canelo.
I think Plant can do better. He has got to learn to use his size in this weight class... at light heavy he will be excellent as well, but will also need to have enough power and the ability to use it to back up punchers with power.
Some will say Canelo just did what he said he would do... well, I think that is also true to a point. But it took Canelo longer to do it, and in fact, what if Plant had been more aggressive in the later rounds? would it have been a Hearn's Hagler type situation? Or could Plant have gotten a bit more respect from Canelo?
Plant is around 6 years older than Canelo was that night... but still has some years to really peak... I feel like Plant did a superb job. He managed to hang in there and be competative... to a point. I think he showed his defensive chops and most important: I think Plant will do a lot better if he manages to learn some essential things about why he lost: Canelo is Canelo... but a great fighter does not let that fatalism influence their confidence.
1) If your only playing defense, what incentive is there for the other guy to back off? Interestingly enough... Plant backed Canelo off and snapped his head back with his jab... meaning essentially that Plant had the ability to hit Canelo and back him up. The greatest defensive wizards pick their spots... they make the puncher hurt... like Whitaker did to Chavez for example. Plant has the power he has got to know when to use it. He got Canelo's respect, but not enough to make Canelo think twice coming forward. You can't just back up an entire fight...
2) Waterloo comes in different flavors: You don't want to be General Custer... Or the British division that learned "Hey those Zulu's actually use those sticks to great advantage against these guns!" when things are going south Take your shot, go out on your terms! Plant lacked one essential Coda for this fight: the last act... when Canelo was getting to him, when he made it into the championship rounds, or even I would say, the tenth round...he should have went at Canelo with his own left hook, or at least made Canelo have to counter him for the KO. He had to make a stand and fight... inexperience told him, "no adjustments needed" when in fact, all he had to do was look at great defensive fighters who had to teach a puncher to mind their manners! I mean Holmes hitting Shavers, Leonard firing back against Hagler... Caleb needed to take that chance! He needed to take a stand, and look at the fight as building to that point where his job was to try to hurt Canelo.
I think Plant can do better. He has got to learn to use his size in this weight class... at light heavy he will be excellent as well, but will also need to have enough power and the ability to use it to back up punchers with power.
Some will say Canelo just did what he said he would do... well, I think that is also true to a point. But it took Canelo longer to do it, and in fact, what if Plant had been more aggressive in the later rounds? would it have been a Hearn's Hagler type situation? Or could Plant have gotten a bit more respect from Canelo?
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