By Daniele D’Alessio: In a post-fight interview with Boxing Social, Trainer Ben Davison says Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez (57-1-2, 39 KOs) produced a “systematic performance” to knock out Caleb ‘Sweethands” Plant (21-1, 12 KOs) and become the first undisputed super middleweight champion in history.
Davison referred to seemingly odd scorecards on Twitter and gave praise to Plant who “did his thing and was a good performer”, but ultimately Canelo “proved himself as pound for pound number one”.
The British trainer mentions how the Mexican superstar was a “little too left hook happy and could have played the jab and left hook off a little bit more”, implying that he could have shown more variety in his punches.
Still, he acknowledges that Alvarez was planning his best shot all night and the last left hook had a “big impact”.
When asked whether this is the best we have seen from Canelo, Davison is brutally honest and states “it was not his best performance by a long stretch”. He goes on to say Alvarez may have been too “emotionally involved” which hindered his boxing as he showed “a lack of feints”.
Despite making history last night the fight was far from straightforward. From the opening bell Plant was very awkward and hard to hit cleanly. Canelo came forward and tried to walk him down yet the American showed good boxing skills and especially a nice jab to neutralize any significant onslaughts.
As the bout continued into the later rounds, Plant did start to slow down which made it easier for Canelo to close the distance. However, with a few rounds to go, this was still a close fight and many of the rounds could have gone either way.
Similar to his previous bout with Sergey Kovalev (34-4-1, 29 KOs), Canelo found his most devastating punches in the 11th round which was a beautiful left hook followed by a massive right uppercut and then a left to the body. This knocked Plant down and then sent him running across the ring to try and compose himself.
Alvarez finished the job by swarming on him and landing a few left and right shots to Plants head causing him to fall to the ground again and the referee to stop the fight.
Caleb Plant lost to the superior fighter tonight but showed the boxing public he is a skilled boxer who is world level.
The big question now is who will Canelo fight next? Will it be the unbeaten Mexican American David Benavidez (24-0, 21 KOs), the explosive Jermall Charlo (32-0, 22 KOs), or light heavyweight knockout king Artur Beterbiev (16-0, 16 KOs)?
One thing is for sure, we will not see Alvarez back in the ring until May next year. After fighting, four times in 2021 the pound-for-pound superstar is taking a well-earned break.