(Credit: Josh Jordan/Premier Boxing Champions) By Jim Dower: Undefeated middleweight prospect Caleb Plant (11-0, 8 KOs) outworked Tyson Brunson (22-6-1, 21 KOs) in beating him by an 8 round unanimous decision on Saturday night on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC Sports Net at the NRG Arena, in Houston, Texas. The final judges’ scores were 78-74, 79-73 and 79-73.
Plant was the much busier fighter in every round of the fight. Brunson, 30, was the bigger puncher of the two, but he wasn’t able to match the high work rate of Plant. Brunson had a good 6th round in landing some big power shots. However, he was unable to sustain it for the final two rounds of the contest.
Plant’s right eye was reddened from some of the big shots that Brunson landed in the fight, but fortunately for him, Brunson didn’t throw a lot of punches.
“It was my hardest fight,” Plant said afterwards. “I stayed composed and I stayed creative.”
Plant, 23, looks like a decent middleweight prospect. However, he’s going to need to work on his punching power if he wants compete with the best middleweights like Gennady Golovkin, Andy Lee, Miguel Cotto, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Daniel Jacobs and Peter Quillin. I’m sure Plant and his management are figuring that he can outlast the aging Golovkin, Lee, Quillin and Cotto. However, there are still going to be other middleweights coming up in the next five years with likely better power than Plant, and he’s going to need to find a way to beat them. That’s if he can continue to make weight for the 160lb division.
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As expected, #1 WBC junior middleweight contender Jermell Charlo (27-0, 12 KOs) defeated 39-year-old former WBA 154lb champion Joachim Alcine (35-8-2, 21 KOs) in the 6th round. Charlo, 25, dropped Alcine in the 6th. He then flurried on the hurt Alcine until referee Jon Shorle halted the fight at 1:21 of the round.
Charlo missed with three of his punches during the knockout sequence, but was able to connect with a left-right combination that knocked Alcine into the ropes. The referee Shorle then stopped the fight.
Alcine took some big shots in the 6th from Charlo. He didn’t have the hand speed or the punching power to deal with the superior talent of the younger Charlo.
In the 3rd round, Charlo hurt Alcine with a big left hook to the head. Charlo was able to land another big shot, but Alcine did a good job of holding onto make it out of the round.
Charlo landed 110 of 223 punches for a connect percentage of 47.
This was too much of a mismatch to know whether Charlo has improved from the controversial 19 round decision he was given in his last fight against Vanes Martirosyan last March. A lot of boxing fans thought Charlo deserved to lose that fight. Judging by the way that Alcine was able to connect with the few shots he threw in the fight, I’d say that Charlo hasn’t gotten any better. The only thing that’s changed is he was matched up with an old journeyman in Alcine.
“There difference is there’s levels in this. I’m at a different level than Alcine,” Charlo said after the fight. The next fight for me is the WBC. Right now, Floyd Mayweather Jr. has the WBC title and he doesn’t want to give it up. Absolutely. Fight me. I’m changing things up. I’m trying to be more like my brother [Jermall Charlo] and be more of a puncher,” Jermell said.
I’m skeptical about whether Jermell will ever have the punching power of his brother Jermall. It’s like night and day when you see the two fighters in their respective fights. Jermall is a much more compact puncher with superb punching power. Jermell doesn’t have that kind of power even when he loads up with everything he has in his shots. He’s just not able to summon the same kind of raw power that Jermall has. Jermall doesn’t have to load up on his punches to land with big power. The taller 6’0″ Jermall just naturally has the superior power than his 5’11’ brother Jermell. It’s definitely wise for Jermell to be working on his punching power, because unless he can develop his power, he’s going to continue to struggle each time he steps up a notch in class. Alcine, a 2nd tier fighter, obviously wasn’t a class opponent. He was just another confidence builder/record padding opponent. Jermell will need to show more power when he eventually fights for the WBC title after the current champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. either vacates the title or is stripped of it by the World Boxing Council. In that case, Jermell will either fight #2 WBC John Jackson or #3 WBC Vanes Martirosyan. Both guys can punch, it’ll be tough on Jermell to try and beat them.
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Middleweight Tony Harrison (22-1, 18 Kos) outworked Cecil McCalla (20-3, 7 KOs) in winning a 10 round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 100-90, 98-92 and 98-92.
McCalla, 30, trailed the entire fight, but was able to hurt Harrison with a big right hand in the 9th round. McCalla appeared to get the better of the constantly moving Harrison in the 10th round, but it wasn’t enough for him to make up for the first nine rounds.
McCalla was too defensive, and failed to put his punches together. He was just plodding after Harrison, throwing one shot at a time instead of putting his punches together. This made it easy for Harrison to move around, jab and get out of the way of the occasional big punches that McCalla would throw at him.
“He took a beating in the first eight rounds,” Harrison said after the fight. “I got a little too careless. I just wanted to use my jab in the fight. It’s so hard to look good against a defensive fighter. I enjoy getting hit. You can’t please everybody. I’m here to win.”
Harrison lost his last fight to Willie Nelson last July by a 9th round knockout. Harrison didn’t look his punch resistance has gotten any better since his loss to Nelson. The right hand that McCalla hurt Harrison with in the 9th suggests that Harrison still can’t handle big shots. Hat this been Nelson or another big puncher in there tonight, Harrison likely would have been in a world of hurt.
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