By Dan Ambrose: WBC interim super middleweight champion David Benavidez (27-0, 23 KOs) punched his ticket for a fight against undisputed 168-lb champion Canelo Alvarez by outworking Caleb Plant (22-2, 13 KOs) over 12 rounds to win a unanimous decision on Saturday night in a fight that was competitive until the very end at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
The scores were 115-113, 116-112, and 117-111. We might have seen a stoppage for Benavidez if not for referee Kenny Bayless repeatedly breaking the action when he had Plant hurt, taking shot after shot.
On a handful of occasions, Bayless appeared to save Plant with his timely breaks in the action. It was almost as if Benavidez was fighting two people at times in the ring, which made his job that much harder. Fortunately, this didn’t change the outcome of the fight.
Benavidez was visibly frustrated in the first half of the fight, struggling to land his shots against the fleet of foot Plant, who was jabbing, landing pot shots, moving, and showboating nonstop.
It was clear that Plant was trying to make Benavidez mad so that he would fight recklessly to make mistakes that he could capitalize on on, which is exactly what happened.
The exertion that Plant had to put out to stay on the move to avoid Benavidez’s heavy shots took a toll on him in the second half, as he totally gassed out in the championship rounds, getting hit a lot and frequently clinching to slow down the offense of the ‘Mexican Monster.’
By tenth round, Plant looked totally exhausted and was walking forward, taking punishment but without getting badly hurt by Benavidez.
On that note, Benavidez appeared less powerful than he had in his past fights, as he appeared thinner, less muscular than he’d been in the past, and that’s obviously a product of him overtraining in camp.
Most boxing fans would agree Benavidez worked too hard in camp, sparring between 12 to 15 rounds every day for months, and going way overboard due to him badly wanting the win.
If Plant had been able to keep the pace that he set in the first five rounds, he would have won by a landslide, as he was easily outboxing Benavidez during the first quarter of the fight, making him look bad and showing the difference between them in terms of technical skills. However, Plant couldn’t keep up with the fast pace that Benavidez set, and he ran out of energy in the last half of the fight.