Caleb Plant shuts out Caleb Truax, eyes Canelo fight next

Caleb Plant retained his IBF super middleweight title with a shutout victory over former title list Caleb Truax, keeping Plant on track for a huge fight with Canelo Alvarez later this year for now.

Plant won across the board with scores of 120-108. Bad Left Hook also scored the fight 120-108 on a pair of separate unofficial cards.

The 28-year-old Plant (21-0, 12 KO) had no real problems with the 37-year-old Truax (31-5-2, 19 KO), who largely overwhelmed the veteran with his speed, especially after his jab. Even what Plant thinks is a broken hand didn’t really play a role in the fight or really became noticeable, and Truax simply had nothing in his arsenal to bother Plant, though he occasionally got through with a solid right hand.

“I hurt my hand a little bit at the start of the fight, and I was a bit hesitant at times, but I still feel like I’m putting in a great performance. I wasn’t really hit, ”said Plant.

The fight with WBC and WBA title holder Alvarez was likely to come late this year, sometime between September and December, as Canelo will be fighting WBC mandatory challenger Avni Yildirim as early as February 27 and has reportedly struck a deal to unite with WBO title holder Billy Joe Saunders in early May.

But Canelo is the fight that Plant wants, of course, and barring some significant damage to the hand, or Canelo loses between now and then, it seems likely to be next for the Tennessee resident.

“That’s my goal. I want to be the first undisputed super middleweight champion of all time,” said Plant. “I feel like I’m the best super middleweight in the world. Whoever gets in the way, you put them on a line. row, I’ll knock them down. “

Michael Coffie TKO-3 Darmani Rock

Once an American top amateur heavyweight, 24-year-old Rock had a bit of hype, although, in all sincerity, being a top American amateur doesn’t always mean what it used to mean. He turned pro in 2016 and really didn’t do anything at all, and this must be a hugely disappointing result for him in what qualified as a pretty big step against a 34-year-old ex-Marine who didn’t. He didn’t start boxing until he was 29.

It’s not just that Coffie (12-0, 9 KO) is a genuinely great person with a lot of strength in his hands. Coffie was also rather handy out-boxing Rock (17-1, 12 KO) also behind a jab. The fight was all Coffie while it lasted.

Rock went down on a left hook in the third, and just barely defeated referee Jack Reiss ’10-count. Another left hook put him back down, Reiss counted to seven and called it off there, as Rock clearly didn’t get up. Rock has a build that – and I’m trying not to be overly critical or an asshole about this – gives the impression that he’s just not particularly committed to his craft. And this is a result that in fairness suggests the same. It’s worth wondering, just during the eye test and the way his career has progressed (or not, more realistically), how much he really wants to fight like a pro.

“He has fast hands, we knew that from the start, but timing is more important than speed,” said Coffie after the fight. ‘He shuffles his feet, and when he shuffles his feet, he drops his hand too, they are out of sync. So it was waiting for him to shuffle his feet and then get him with that left hook. “

When asked what he wants now, it is clear that Coffie takes a reasonable approach and wants to keep improving fight for fight to climb the ladder.

“Honestly, I’m trying to get the one that’s above Darmani Rock, I want that person,” he said. ‘After that, I want someone else above him, and then above him. The one who will take me to that world title. “

Joey Spencer TKO-1 Isiah Seldon

This was a mess. Spencer (12-0, 9 KO) dropped Seldon (14-4-1, 5 KO) twice with the right hands, and hard both times, with the second giving him the interruption. In between knockdowns, 32-year-old Seldon, son of retired heavyweight fighter Bruce Seldon, threw a series of blatant, ugly, and deliberate shots into Spencer’s mind.

Referee Jerry Cantu got two points from Seldon on the foul, not that it mattered in the end. When Cantu stopped the obvious mismatch after the second knockdown, Seldon went ballistic yelling and stomping around until Cantu threatened to pack his bag in the corner.

Seldon is truly a club fighter at best and has now lost three out of five, all of them first-round interruptions to real potential clients. Brian Kenny and Shawn Porter kind of argued that Cantu took two points instead of just one or whatever, but to me Cantu would have had a perfectly fair argument for simply disqualifying Seldon.

It cannot be overemphasized that he very purposefully, with clear intent, aimed unprotected in a vulnerable position at the back of Spencer’s head and raised the right hands he threw. There is no way to look at that and say that he wasn’t looking to do harm in an obviously illegal attack, an attack that is genuinely dangerous, even more so than just the fact that boxing is inherently very dangerous. It was awful behavior, enough to make you wonder if there was some kind of legit beef between the two coming in. Look, I’ve seen Seldon fight before, and honestly, the result is what I expected, first round and all. But he was very emotional here.

Rances Barthelemy UD-10 All Rivera

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A fairly easy win here for Barthelemy (28-1-1, 14 KO), who hadn’t fought since his historically terrible fight with Robert Easter Jr in 2019. The 34-year-old Cuban has won world titles at 130 and 135, saying now that he’s trying to come in with Errol Spence Jr or Terence Crawford at 147, though this was fought at a seemingly 144 pounds, and Barthelemy could probably make 140 if anything. Maybe not, as Top Rank currently controls all four major titles, although PBC does have a secondary WBA title list Mario Barrios.

Barthelemy is never really thrilling, nor was there, as he usually ran through the 10 rounds against the oversized Rivera (21-5, 18 KO), a 27-year-old Filipino left-handed and former OPBF 140-pound champion, for some is worth.

This isn’t the kind of victory that will get Barthelemy on a date with Spence, who may be targeting another Cuban in Yordenis Ugas, but Crawford? Hey, he has such limited options that PBC can be small and bid him up to Top Rank. I don’t think that’s a fight Bob Arum is going to pay for, because it isn’t more exciting or “legitimate” than other cheaper fights, but who knows? It’s a wild world.

Atif Oberlton TKO-3 Nathan Sharp

This was a pro debut for Oberlton, a 22-year-old light heavyweight from Philadelphia who was a standout American amateur and decided to turn pro once the 2020 Olympics were postponed, which seems like a really good choice as we probably are. heading for an outright cancellation of the rescheduled 2021 Olympics.

Oberlton notably threw some nasty body shots and doubled Sharp (4-3, 4 KO) in the second and third rounds, although Sharp was tough and didn’t go down. However, the 30-year-old from California was stopped in the third, when he was actually a seated duck and referee Sharon Sands made the very reasonable call to put an end to what had been a complete mismatch. Oberlton, nicknamed ‘Lord Pretty Calvo’, is certainly on the prospect list at 175.

Brandyn Lynch D-8 Marcos Hernandez

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The 29-year-old Lynch (10-1-1, 8 KO) increased the competition here. He is the cousin of Eddie Murphy and also the grandson of a professional boxer, which was something to be said at the top of the fight, and the Murphy part was repeated throughout the eight rounds.

I thought Lynch deserved the win here, honestly, I had it 79-73 for him, could have had it maybe 77-75 in his favor had I stole a few more for Hernandez (14-4-2, 3 KO) for activity, which is certainly what two judges saw to give us the result of the split draw. One judge had it 78-74 Hernandez, which seems far away to me, one had the 77-75 Lynch, and the other was even 76-76.

Hernandez, 27, is a solid, scrappy gatekeeper type, and he ended up holding the gate here, returning after just over a month after losing to Alantez Fox on December 26. But I really thought Lynch deserved these with sharper punches and superior accuracy. Frankly, I am wrong. I don’t think I’m infallible. The good news is that I will never go back to double check. But I’ll say this, our friend Marcos Villegas even had it scoring for FOX, and Julian “J-Rock” Williams had it for Hernandez, so I may have just left here.

If you’re wondering what the CompuBox numbers are, they landed Lynch 99 of the 361 (27%) lands, and 49 of 159 (31%) of his powerful punches, with Hernandez at 75 of 525 (14%) in total and 56 of 260 (22%) strong punches. So Hernandez had a slight lead on power shots, but he was out-stabbed 50-19, and Lynch landed 17 body shots against Hernandez’s six.