By Dan Ambrose: Superstar in the making Caleb Plant will be returning to the ring to defend his IBF super-middleweight title next month on January 30th in the main event on PBC on Fox.

There are two desirable opponents that Plant’s management is looking at to match against him for this date, according to Mike Coppinger.

The undefeated Plant (20-0, 12 KOs) will be coming off an eleven-month layoff when he returns to the ring on January 30th.

Caleb on the cusp of stardom

The highly talented Plant needs to add Canelo Alvarez or Gennadiy Golovkin’s scalp to his collection for him to leap to the next level of pay-per-view. It’s not easy getting those guys to agree to a fight with him because his boxing ability is similar to Floyd Mayweather Jr.

If Canelo were to fight Plant right now, he would potentially get schooled by him. Hence, he’s not looked in his direction when it comes to fights.

Plant last fought earlier this year in defeating his International Boxing Federation mandatory challenger Vincent Feigenbutz (32-3, 28 KOs) by a 10th round knockout on February 15th in Nashville, Tennessee.

The fight was a war from start to finish until the 28-year-old Plant stopped him in the tenth.

Plant would like to take on the other champions at 168 in Canelo Alvarez, Callum Smith, and Billy Joe Saunders. Unluckily, those guys fight on DAZN, which makes it problematic in putting together a unification match with Plant. He fights on PBC on Fox.

Caleb on the cusp of stardom

Good options for Caleb Plant’s January 30th fight:

Caleb Truax
Zach Parker
Jurgen Brahmer
Vladimir Shishkin
Erik Bazinyan
Daniel Jacobs
Gabe Rosado

I’d personally like to see Plant take on Daniel Jacobs, Edger Berlanga, or David Lemieux.

Plant wanted to fight Canelo earlier this year, but he put in a position where he would have needed to get back in training camp right away following his grueling fight against the young German fighter Feigenbutz.

You can argue that the offer that Plant was given by Golden Boy Promotions wasn’t a serious one. Even if Plant had agreed to the fight, Golden Boy would likely have pulled the rug out from under the fight and chosen to go in a different direction.

Golden Boy is no longer promoting Canelo, and he’s calling his own shots now, as we see with him facing WBA super-middleweight champion Callum Smith on December 18th. For the boxing fans that don’t remember, Callum is the guy that was given a controversial 12 round decision over John Ryder last year.

Ryder appeared to beat Callum, but the judges gave it to the stork-like Smith. For the record, the fight was staged in Callum’s hometown of Liverpool, England.

Sources: Caleb Plant will defend his 168-pound title on Jan. 30 in the main event of PBC on FOX. Plant has the ingredients to become a star, and this will be his third consecutive title defense on free TV. A couple of names being discussed for the assignment,” said @MikeCoppinger.