Since that fight, Alvarez has won championships at middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight, most recently scoring an eighth-round stoppage of Billy Joe Saunders in May to add the WBO super middleweight title to his collections. Plant defeated Jose Uzcategui on January 13, 2019 from the Microsoft Center in Los Angeles, CA to become the IBF Super Middleweight Champion of the World. Canelo (53-1-2, 36 KOs) obviously has too much pride for him to walk away from a loss to WBA super middleweight champion Callum (27-0, 19 KOs) without attempting to avenge the loss. Moreover, last November he predicted a stoppage victory between rounds No. 10 and 12 for Canelo Alvarez against Caleb Plant in their super middleweight unification bout. Canelo sees things that aren’t there in his mind, painting a fantasy picture of Plant cowering on November 6th and not throwing punches. Alvarez's trainer/manager, Eddy Reynoso, surprised the boxing world (and apparently Alvarez, himself) last November when he made a plea at the WBC convention in Mexico for Alvarez to be cleared by the sanctioning body to challenge cruiserweight champion Ilunga Makabu.
Canelo counters with body punches. We now know that Canelo has overcome the Saunders hurdle. Canelo’s a tremendous fighter, he’s one of the top fighters out there right now. Alvarez won, collected another belt, vacated it, has since split with Golden Boy fully and split with DAZN contractually (though obviously the sides are willing to work together still), and now returns against Smith at 168 pounds, looking to gain a legitimate pair of titles in that division. It was able to come through, and I’m happy about it, and I’m totally locked in and focused. Golovkin needs to take the shot, if he’s going to get it, as soon as possible. You could die in the ring, so I took that pretty serious, and I decided obviously to take that break. The 21-1 boxer, sarcastically took aim at the lightweight on twitter saying, “Just reported that Georgie lost on purpose in attempts to deceive Devin” referring to Kambosos’ earlier statements about missing weight on purpose. Dirrell is past it at this stage in his career, having fought to a recent draw against Kyrone Davis, lost to Benavidez, and struggled against Avni Yildirim.
Plant comes in as the current IBF champion and undefeated in his professional career so far, despite not having fought any fighters of note. As Ward once said about Canelo, he’s an “opportunist” with the way he picks out vulnerable fighters rather than taking real risks. Even if he does beat Beterbiev, I have to think there would be bigger options out there for Canelo, including a few at 168 where he’s probably more comfortable for the time being. Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka, Kevin Love, MIchael Phelps, and Jessie Diggins are just a few stars who have opened up to the public regarding their struggles. The announcement itself was not a huge surprise to those who had been reading the writing on the wall for at least a year prior, but it changed the game. 12 days after the second Canelo-GGG pay-per-view, which was a big success, HBO announced that they would no longer be in the boxing game.
He’s made GGG wait for three years for the trilogy, and he might make him wait longer. Canelo signed a record $365 million deal with DAZN, which turned out to be a slight over-estimate of his drawing power - which is substantial, but not that substantial - and is no longer on the books for the fighter or the streaming platform. Did the loss to the Russian damage the legacy Alvarez has built in the last decade along with his status as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world? Some have claimed that Russian champion Bivol should not be allowed to face Canelo due to country’s current invasion of Ukraine. The four-division champion has accepted his defeat and vowed to get back in the win column. Benavidez has been quite vocal in calling out Plant in the past, saying that he believes he can beat the former IBF champion. You can keep up to date with all of the latest boxing news right here at GiveMeSport. Garcia later revealed to Boxing News that he ended up breaking down in front of Canelo Alvarez and Eddy Reynoso before the Fortuna fight.