Caleb Plant’s win over Trevor McCumby last weekend has made him a good option for Canelo Alvarez’s next fight in May. The former IBF super middleweight champion Plant is the ideal opponent for Canelo to people interested.
Canelo has reached the point where he has few options left at 168 for marketable flights that the public is interested in watching. The talented fighters that could give Canelo problems, like Christian Mbilli and Osleys Inglesias, aren’t well-known enough to attract PPV buys from the U.S. public. Those guys are arguably better fighters than Plant and would likely knock him out, but they don’t have his name recognition.
If Canelo stays at 168, he’ll need an opponent next May who can generate hype, talk trash, and get people interested. That’s where Plant comes in.
Plant (23-2, 14 KOs) won the WBA interim super middleweight title with a ninth round knockout of McCumby last Saturday night on the Canelo vs. Edgar Berlanga undercard in Las Vegas. That win for Plant puts him in position for a rematch with Canelo, who holds the WBA belt.
“I thought, ‘No way, nobody wanted to see that,’ and then I saw how popular he was this weekend. I was like, ‘Oh, no, this can definitely happen,’” said Chris Algieri to Inside Boxing Live about Caleb Plant’s performance against Trevor McCumby last Saturday, making him a viable option for a rematch with Canelo Alvarez.
Plant’s fight against McCumby stole last weekend’s show on the Canelo-Berlanga card at the T-Mobile Arena. The way Plant rallied after being dropped and hurt by McCumby was impressive. Granted, it didn’t look good that Plant struggled against a fighter with a one-dimensional game like McCumby, but that’s the type of fighter Plant is. He’s not the best at 168, but he makes his fights interesting.
“Canelo is coming into an area where he’s going to have rematches with Plant and Munguia,’ said Algieri. “It’s just a matter of time before one of these guys beats him. Caleb Plant looked so good over the weekend. It seemed to me he fought Canelo; he wasn’t ready for that level of a guy. I think he learned a lot from that fight that he brought into the Benavidez fight.”
Plant hasn’t improved since his 11th-round knockout loss to Canelo in November 2021. The shots that Canelo hurt Plant in that fight would have done the same thing to him if he’d fought him last weekend. McCumby had Plant hurt but lacked the punch arsenal to finish him. Canelo took advantage of Plant’s habit of bending forward by nailing him with uppercuts and would likely take advantage of that same weakness in a rematch.
“If he were the same guy that fought Canelo, he would have got stopped by Benavidez because he got beat up late but persevered through that. Against Canelo, he didn’t. He crumbled under the pressure. Since then, he seems like he’s learned a lot. You bring that into a rematch with Canelo, and now Canelo is three years older. Canelo is going to lose one of these days. He’s getting older. It’s showing,” said Algieri.
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