Canelo vs. Plant: Alvarez receives draft contract for September 18th fight on Fox pay-per-view

By Boxing News - 07/24/2021 - Comments

By Sean Jones: WBA/WBC/WBO super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez has received a draft contract for his undisputed championship fight against IBF 168lb belt-holder Caleb Plant for September 18th on FOX PPV in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Mexican star is looking over the contract, and if he likes what he sees, the Canelo-Plant fight will be finalized. Once it’s finalized, Canelo and Plant will ramp up for a match two months from now, on September 18th on FOX PPV in Las Vegas.

Canelo has been fighting on DAZN since 2018, which has saved him the ordeal of needing to fight popular opposition.

With Canelo fighting Plant in a one-time deal on PBC on FOX PPV, there will be pressure for the two to get out there and market the fight to the public for it to bring in PPV buys.

Plant, 28, wanted $10 million for the fight with Alvarez. Nothing has been said about whether Plant’s asking price has been met, but it likely has.

$10M for a fighter that isn’t hugely popular and has faced lesser threats since picking up his IBF strap in 2019.

It’s hard to imagine Plant, a fighter with a resume barren of name fighters, getting $10 million. Wow.

Image: Canelo vs. Plant: Alvarez receives draft contract for September 18th fight on Fox pay-per-view

If Plant gets that kind of payday against Canelo, it could send the wrong message to other fighters. In other words, if they go the easy route against lesser opposition to get their hands on a title, they might get lucky too against a title-hungry Canelo, who views the belts as a way of validating his career. They don’t, obviously.

What would make a real difference to Canelo’s legacy is if he fought quality opposition that fans want to see him fight.

ESPN’s Mike Coppinger reports that Alvarez (56-1-2, 38 KOs) has been sent the draft copy of the contract for his September 18th match-up against IBF champion Plant (21-0, 12 KOs). Coppinger says that Canelo vs. Plant is “still in the process of being finalized.” Although the fight isn’t agreed on yet, we’re getting closer.

Alvarez has picked up his 168lb titles in defeating Rocky Fielding, Callum Smith, and Billy Joe Saunders. He beat previously unbeaten WBO 168-lb champion Saunders in his last fight by an eighth round stoppage on May 8th.

Before that bout, Canelo chose to defend against his WBC mandatory Avni Yildirim last February, blowing the Turkish fighter out in three rounds in a widely criticized fight on DAZN.

Boxing fans were already upset at Canelo choosing to win all four belts at 168 against the terribly weak paper champions in the division. Still, he took a step further by defending against Yildirim, a fighter coming off a loss and hadn’t fought in two years.

Canelo’s decision to fight Yildirim made it painfully obvious that he’s not trying to build a legacy in a real way like boxing greats from the past. Thomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard, or Marvin Hagler wouldn’t have invested time into unifying a weight class against weak paper champions the way Canelo has chosen to do.

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They were more concerned with facing the best. There would have been no gain by them to unify against no-name fighters. The fact that Canelo has chosen to shape his legacy superficially by fighting paper champions suggests that he’s not confident that he can beat the best.

Fans don’t see Canelo unifying weak champions like Caleb Plant, Saunders, Callum Smith, and Rocky Fielding. They want to see Canelo fight David Benavidez, Jermall Charlo, Gennadiy Golovkin, Demetrius Andrade, Artur Beterbiev, Dimitry Bivol and Joe Smith Jr.

Interestingly, Canelo has chosen to invest three years of his career in this pursuit of becoming the undisputed champion at 168.

The Mexican star stated his quest to become the four-belt champion at super middleweight in 2018 when he defeated WBA champion Rocky Fielding by a third round knockout.

Image: Canelo vs. Plant: Alvarez receives draft contract for September 18th fight on Fox pay-per-view

At the time, no one would know that Canelo would choose to invest so much time and energy into unifying the 168lb division, as the champions were no-names, and it was essentially a useless time-waster.

With all the great fights out there that Canelo could have been taking to shape his legacy in a real way rather than doing it superficially, he chose to aim for the low-hanging fruit by deciding to become the undisputed champion at 168.

This would have been a great move on Canelo’s part if the weight class champions were killers who would positively impact his legacy. The champions that Canelo has beaten thus far to win his 168-lb titles are as follows:

  • Rocky Fielding – WBA
  • Callum Smith – WBA Super + vacant WBC
  • Billy Joe Saunders

All three champions were from the UK, not well known to U.S boxing fans, and had looked poor in recent fights before Alvarez fought them.

The risk-averse Plant has made three defenses of his IBF 168lb since picking up the belt against Jose Uzcategui in 2019.

Plant’s three title defenses have come against these contenders: Mike Lee [was a contender at 175, not 168, when Plant fought him, Caleb Trux [38-years-old], and Vincent Feigenbutz.