The winner of this bout will join the ranks amongst the likes of Jermain Taylor, Bernard Hopkins, Terence Crawford, Josh Taylor, and Oleksandr Usyk. Plus, Oleksandr Usyk shocked many with his dazzling performance against Anthony Joshua to claim the unified heavyweight championships. What Plant does realize is that he’s in a prime position to turn over the apple cart on Nov. 6. It’s supposed to be Canelo’s coronation as the undisputed super middleweight champ, a feat he aimed to accomplish in less than a year by capturing championships from Callum Smith, Billy Joe Saunders and, finally, Caleb Plant. In the match, Alvarez will defend his WBA, WBC, WBO, and The Ring super middleweight titles, while Plant will put his IBF super-middleweight title on the line. With the victory, Canelo was crowned undisputed WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO super-middleweight champion of the world. Canelo Alvarez intends to fully unify all four major super-middleweight titles against Caleb Plant in his next fight. With Plant already in possession of the IBF 168 pound crown, all that was left for Plant to do was defeat arguably the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world in Canelo Alvarez… He’ll almost certainly start as a massive underdog against the world’s current pound-for-pound champion.
So once I won that world title, a lot of people think, ‘Well, I’m not the hunter anymore; I’m the hunted.’ But I’m still the hunter. Proving people wrong is pretty cliche but it’s truly something that Plant has spent his life doing. Unlike other fighters, who constantly try to convince us of how good they are, Plant doesn’t seem bothered by what people think. The Japanese veteran was a consistent contender for years, and more than that, a three-time champ at strawweight who has been in the ring with Chocolatito Gonzalez, Nkosinathi Joyi, and other good opponents. And if some think living a good life now has taken away his hunger, they’re about to find out that they’re dead wrong. “ But I’m not just here to prove the critics wrong. And now I’m so far in it and have become so successful at it, it would be silly for me to stop and if I do stop, I could wind up right back where I’m from. And then once I got so far along, it was ‘I’m too far to turn back now.’ I’m on a one-way mission.
Plant fought on, but tragedy wasn’t done with him yet, as his mother, Beth, was shot and killed after pulling a knife on a police officer in March 2019. By then, Plant was already a world champion and far removed from the life he grew up in back in Tennessee. Of course, it’s the biggest fight of his life and he’s ready for it. The UFC, of course, has not been immune from onstage confrontations featuring its fighters. In 2014, now-former champs Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier got into a full-fledged fight at a press conference for their first scheduled showdown - despite the presence of former UFC PR head Dave Sholler, who was quickly pushed aside as the two fighters collided. A lot of that is on us, the boxing journalists, who ask the same questions over and over again. “I haven’t been able to do some things in boxing I’ve wanted, but me and Jordan have been on top of other things to help us be successful,” he said. “I turned pro because I had Alia, I had bills to pay, I wanted to get all this money and get all the things I never had as a child,” he said.