By Dan Ambrose: Caleb ‘Sweethands’ Plant says he’s going to go out and teach Canelo Alvarez some valuable lessons next month when they meet for the undisputed super middleweight championship at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas.
WBA/WBC/WBO 168-lb champion Canelo (56-1-2, 38 KOs) has riled up IBF champion Plant (21-0, 12 KOs) by boiling over and physically attacking him during their Los Angeles press conference last month on September 4th.
Can Alvarez control himself?
The 28-year-old Plant says he’s still bothered by Canelo’s attack, but one can tell that the Tennessean is keeping score, and he wants to give him some payback on November 6th.
Plant won’t have his sunglasses on when they meet up next month, so he’ll be ready. Before then, the two fighters still need to meet twice more for the final press conference and the weigh-in.
It’ll be interesting to see if Canelo can control himself from going after Plant if he trash-talks him. Perhaps more than any other fighter that Canelo has faced before, Plant has caused him to come unglued.
Whether it’s Plant’s supreme self-confidence or his bitting insults, which have a grain of truth to some of them, it’s unclear. All we do know is Canelo seems to lose it when he hears Plant firing away it himself with insults.
Plant had to defend himself
“I’m halfway through the camp, and I’m just looking to finish the camp the same way I started the first half,” said Caleb Plant to FightHub TV. “What led to my escalation was him pushing me. If you put your hands on me in that manner.
“Maybe a lot of you would disagree,” Caleb Plant said. “You’re going to retaliate. So, why he got so irritated and lost his cool is a question for him.
“I got him with a slap, and he got me with a slap, but I had my sunglasses on,” Plant said about his alteration with Canelo Alvarez. “We were staring at each other, and then he took his sunglasses off, but I wasn’t about to follow suit and do what he’s doing.
“But when he [Canelo] got me, it pushed my sunglasses up and left scratches [under Plant’s right eye],” said Plant.
“It’s nothing like it is going to hold us back from the fight or is going to need stitches. The next day, I was sparring, and then that Saturday, I was sparring. It hasn’t been an issue at all, like I said,” the unbeaten Plant added.
“My sunglasses pushed my skin up here. I put a bandaid on it and kept on going. A lot of people were worried. Social media is going to do what social media does, but I try to tell people that it’s just a scratch and not a big deal,” said Plant. “In their eyes, ‘Of course, he would say that.’
“I know everyone was worried, but you could see for yourself that it’s just a little scratch,” said Plant. “He got one on me, I got one on him, but the difference is, I had my sunglasses on,” said Plant.
You can’t blame Plant for firing back at Canelo after the way he shoved him violently during their face-off last September.
Plant’s head whiplashed when he was shoved hard by Canelo, which sent him clear across the stage.
It’s a good thing Plant didn’t receive a whiplash injury from the shove because his head recoiled backward as if he’d been in a car wreck.
In looking back at that incident, it’s clear that Plant wasn’t expecting to be violently shoved by Canelo.
Plant not worried about being robbed
“It can’t get too much more personal than fighting for the undisputed championship of the world,” said Plant when asked it was more personal with him after being injured by Canelo.
“I take that alteration with a grain of salt. I’ve been in quite a few scuffles in my life, and that definitely doesn’t rank on the top of the list. So it’s just a thing.
“Just being myself,” Plant said when asked what’s the key to beating Canelo. “If I go out there and be myself, then that’s going to be my key to victory.
“I feel like I got all the tools in the bag, all the tools necessary to get my hand raised. Not only get it raised but get it raised in fashion, and it comes down to me going out there and being myself.
“No, no, no, I can’t worry about things like that,” said Plant when asked if he was worried that if it goes to the cards, he won’t be given the decision because of Canelo’s history of winning controversial decisions in Las Vegas.
“Those are things out of my control. I believe in boxing, I believe in the sport, and I believe the judges will do their job and do it correctly on that night,” said Plant.
It’s easy for Plant to say he’s not worried about being robbed right now, but if he finds himself on the receiving end of a controversial decision against Canelo, he’ll know what some of Alvarez’s past opponents have felt.
Alvarez is the A-side in this fight, and he’s at home in Las Vegas, which to some fans is the crime scene for Canelo’s controversial decisions against Gennadiy Golovkin and Erislandy Lara.
Caleb vows to teach Canelo a lesson
“It’ll be a fair shake, and the right winner will walk away, and that’s me. It’s going to be indescribable,” said Plant about what it’ll mean to him to beat Canelo to become the undisputed super middleweight champion. “I literally feel like this is my destiny.
“That’s what I feel like I’m walking into, and I’m literally about to walk in a fulfill my destiny. This is something I genuinely believe in my head and truly believe in my heart.
“I’m just waiting for November 6th for that bell to ring so that I can go out there and fulfill that. It’s going to be. And it’s going to mean a lot. It’s going to be a lot of lessons that night,” said Plant on his fight with Canelo next month.
Plant certainly has the boxing style to teach Canelo a lesson, as he can fight a lot like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Erislandy Lara when he wants to.
Those two fighter’s styles proved to be kryptonite against Canelo, rendering him weak and harmless. If Plant fights like that, Canelo won’t be able to do much of anything.
He’ll land in the single digits and look overmatched as he did in his fights with Lara and Mayweather.
