By Allan Fox: Anthony Dirrell believes David Benavidez will be too fast of hand for Caleb Plant when/if the two meet up next. Dirrell (34-3-2, 25 KOs) says he thinks the Benavidez vs. Plant fight will go the full 12 round distance, and he could be right.
Dirrell says he sees the fight as a “one-sided” affair in favor of Benavidez because of his faster hands.
Dirrell was knocked out in the ninth round by Plant on October 15th on the undercard of Deontay Wilder vs. Robert Helenius. With Plant
The way that Plant (22-1, 13 KOs) was fighting a safety-first fight against Dirrell in their bout on October 15th, it’ll be difficult for Benavidez to score a knockout the way that Canelo Alvarez did.
Benavidez would need to walk Plant down the entire fight for him to have a shot at knocking him out because otherwise, he’ll continually retreat the way he did against Dirrell.
“Both of them are good fighters. I think David brings a little more to the table,” said Anthony Dirrell to ESNEWS when asked about his thoughts on a potential fight between Caleb Plant and David Benavidez.
“I think David sometimes has a problem with boxers, people that move and are elusive. But I think David’s hands are pretty fast, and he’s got some snap on his punches. I think that would be a factor that beats Caleb.
“It would be a hell of a fight. I don’t think he stops Caleb, but I think it would be a one-sided fight because he’s [Benavidez] so fast and elusive with his hand speed.
“I can’t get mad at stuff like that. It’s still entertainment. We’re getting paid to entertain people,” said Dirrell about his knockout loss to Plant. “This isn’t my real life. This is to entertain.
“Regardless of what people say, I’m going to go on living my life. Boxing was just a few years. What am I going to do from here is what matters,” said Dirrell.
‘I have nothing personal against Caleb Plant, but me being 38, I had to do what I had to do. I had to talk s**t to get him to engage with me to get him to fight me.
“It’s entertainment. We’re entertaining people and selling tickets. If I didn’t do what I did, then our fight wouldn’t have been as hyped as it was. I have nothing against Caleb. He’s a hell of a fighter, but I had to get everybody involved in talking about that.
“But in the fight, I was boxing good. I don’t think he thought I could box that good, but you know, counter-punching and boxing, he boxed good. He didn’t really want to engage. I thought he would engage more, honestly, like when he fought [Jose] Uzcategui, but he didn’t.
“We were going back and forth. I thought it was a close fight. It was a chess match, but I was coming on in the later rounds for sure. He caught me with a good shot. That was it. I’ve never been hurt like that.
“I seen it [the replay of the knockout]. It was right on the chin. I couldn’t get away from nothing like that. Literally, it was right on the chin. It was a flash knockdown, and that’s why I had no head or brain injury because it was literally on the chin.
“I went down, and your legs give. If anybody gets hit on the chin like that, they’re going down, period. I mean, you have to have a rock-iron chin not to go down off of that.
“We were throwing hooks at the same time, and his got there before mine. He’s a heck of a fighter, and he did what he needed to do for sure.
“I thought it was borderline disrespectful, but after everything that went on, I don’t hold no grudge against him doing that,” said Dirrell about Plant celebrating while he was knocked out on the canvas. You get the crowd going, and it’s in the moment.
“If it was me, I probably would have engaged the crowd and not acted like I was throwing dirt on somebody because you don’t know how the person is. You don’t want to physically hurt somebody like that, killing them or doing other stuff where they’re permanently injured.
“But I think if something did happen, he’d have felt remorse and sorry for it, what he did. Like I said, boxing is a combat sport. Like I said before, it’s entertainment. I don’t have no bad blood against Caleb.
“It was me just getting the fight. Who would want to fight a 38-year-old guy? It’s a lose-lose situation like that. If you beat a guy that’s 38 or if I beat him, then it’s lose-lose for them.
“I shook his hand in the back, and then we went from there. For sure, it’s a combat sport. This is what we fight for. We get in the ring knowing what we’re going in there for. We’re going in there to go to war, regardless of how you look at it.
“He knew what he had in front of him, period. He knew I was a threat coming into the ring, and I think I embraced my presence, especially in the ring, the whole fight. I stalked him down the whole fight. But like I say, that one shot changed everything,” said Dirrell.
It was interesting to hear Plant tell the media after the fight that the contest was a shutout for him because that didn’t reflect the reality of what transpired inside the ring.
It was very close through eight rounds, with Dirrell putting hands on Plant, hitting him with the harder shots, and chasing him around the ring the entire fight. Plant was giving ground a lot more than in his previous fights, perhaps consciously protecting his chin due to what happened to him against Canelo Alvarez.
Dirrell had mentioned before the fight that Plant had been knocked out by one of his sparring partners in camp. If that was true, it might explain why he was retreating throughout the entire fight. Even when Plant scored the knockout in the ninth, he was still retreating.
If Plant is going to fight like that against Benavidez, he’s going to lose for sure. He can’t win a decision against Benavidez by running around the ring, playing it safe. Moreover, he will not score a lucky knockout as he did with Dirrell trying to pick Benavidez off.
