Saturday, November 6, 2021

Boxing Challenge

     The boxing challenge is very light this week as the only fight is the world super-middleweight title unification between WBA/WBC/WBO champion Canelo Alvarez and IBF champion Caleb Plant.

The Alvarez-Plant fight is the only fight because the promoter (PBC ) has put on arguably the worst undercard for a PPV event in years and none of those are challenge-level fights.

I've been critical of Caleb Plant, not due to his boxing skills but because of his poor level of competition and his less than exciting style.

Plant's one victory of note, his title-winning effort over Jose Uzcategui, hasn't aged well with Uzcategui losing his fight following his loss to Plant and in that fight, while I thought Plant won clearly (7-5 and scored two flash knockdowns) Plant tired badly and lost the final five rounds to Uzcategui.

Plant then defended his titles against three of the softer challengers you will ever see (Mike Lee, Vincent Feigenbutz, and a badly faded Caleb Truax) and didn't seem interested in facing anyone that was a threat (David Benavidez fights for PBC and a win over Benavidez would have taken the weak competition factor off the board).

In other words, it seemed that Plant didn't want to fight anyone that had a chance to beat him because he wanted to keep his belt because the end game was that Canelo Alvarez was going to eventually need his title and Plant would cash in.

If that was the strategy, it paid off with a ten million dollar purse, but what it didn't do was prepare Plant to win that fight.

Here are the problems for Plant- Canelo is the bigger puncher, a comparable boxer (in his own style), has faced far tougher competition, is familiar with the big fight atmosphere, has a proven chin (Not saying Plant has a bad chin, just that we still don't know yet), proven stamina, and has been given the benefit of the doubt in every close fight of his career.

And Plant will have to fight off the back foot, hope he has improved his stamina, win seven rounds backing up, and then pray that the judges give him the benefit of the doubt.

Add it all up and it seems impossible.

Still, they fight the fights for a reason and anything can happen but the most likely scenario sees Plant moving from the start, winning a few of the early rounds and the fight is close at the halfway point.

Then Canelo Alvarez begins to stem the tide and Plant begins to tire as Canelo begins to hammer the taller fighter to the body and finishes him in the second half of the fight.

Remember another rule in boxing that rarely has an exception- If you aren't interested in fighting anyone of quality, someone has a reason to avoid them and it's usually that the fighter in question is being protected because their team has a good reason to fear.

In the boxing challenge, I lead Ramon Malpica 142-123

Unification WBA/WBC/WBO- IBF Super Middleweight Titles. 12 Rds 
Canelo Alvarez vs Caleb Plant
R.L:  Alvarez KO 3
TRS: Alvarez KO 9

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