IBF super middleweight champion Caleb Plant made a daunting come back to the ring after almost a year, and he’s already looking to climb a mountain- the mountain none other than Canelo Álvarez.
Caleb Plant marked his third successful title defense against Caleb Truax on 30th January at the Shrine Exposition Center in Los Angeles, winning the fight via unanimous decision and upping his undefeated record to 21 victories (12 KOs).
Now, “Sweethands” wants to aim higher and tougher and is serious to step inside the squared circle with the dominant force of nature that is currently ruling the super middleweight division- Canelo (54-1-2).
We’re close to making that Canelo fight happen: Caleb Plant
Caleb Plant was recently featured on the ‘Last Stand Podcast with Brian Custer’, where he spoke out about considering a fight against Canelo, the ‘P4P King’ who is the current unified super middleweight champion of the world, with both the WBC and WBA (Super) belts in his possession.
“People have [Canelo] as the pound-for-pound king so why would you not put yourself in the best position to get your hand raised in that fight,” Plant told Custer in the podcast.
Coming off from his last December victory over Callum Smith, Canelo currently is slated to defend his titles against Turkish boxer Avni Yıldırım on 27th February at the Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida.
On top of that, a second fight this year is already on the horizon for the Mexican maestro as a clash with WBO super middleweight titleholder Billy Joe Saunders for a three belt unification fight is also reaching legitimate talks and is likely to take place in May.
However, Plant claims that both Canelo’s and his own team have verbally nodded to put the fighters together.
“I think we’re close to making that Canelo fight happen,” the 28-year-old went on, “I think it can be made, he’s saying it can be made, our teams are on board so the Canelo fight will happen.”
While Plant has ticked off his mandatory fight, a win over Saunders will earn Canelo the WBO belt and one step closer to becoming the undisputed champion, and that means facing Plant for his IBF title.
“The IBF is really strict with its mandatories, and the IBF is usually the only sanctioning body that would not excuse mandatories for unification fights or bigger fights,” Plant asserted, “so we thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and do two back-to-back, that way going forward for the whole rest of the year a mandatory wouldn’t get in the way of me making a big unification fight.” (H/T BoxingScene)
A Golden Gloves light middleweight silver medallist, Plant won his IBF belt back in 2019 January with a victory over José Uzcátegui. In July the same year, he had his first successful title defense against Mike Lee, followed by his second with a win over Vincent Feigenbutz in February 2020, his last fight before facing Truax.
