By Bart Barry –
Saturday in Los Angeles in a match broadcast by FOX PBC relocated Tennessean Caleb “Sweethands” Plant decisioned Minnesota’s Caleb Truax to retain a super middleweight title that is to Canelo Alvarez’s super middleweight championship what Dogecoin is to the U.S. dollar. Afterwards Plant congratulated himself for his shutout victory and willingness to fight anybody despite a sore hand.
Even in this traditionally mediocre time of year when mediocrities are mistaken for much more Plant looked mediocre.
When our beloved sport had a more appreciable fanbase the stretch between December and February was when most any decent fight or fighter got sold all over social media. It was an anticipatory sort of thing wherein youngsters looked at the great fights to come and projected their justifiable enthusiasm for the future on a present that did not justify their enthusiasms. Though there was a fraction the enthusiasm for Saturday’s broadcast as bygone years’ January offerings there were still folks projecting their understandable enthusiasm for March’s super flyweight superfight on the Calebs.
Caleb Truax, stopped in his prime by both Danny Jacobs and Anthony Dirrell, got presented as some sort of legitimate threat to a super middleweight titlist, which he is not. For comparison’s sake, imagine what aficionados would say if after undressing Callum Smith, Canelo had called-out Truax.
Yet a guy who says with a straight face he wants to unify all the titles and become the first super middleweight somethingorother chose Truax as his third title defense. Was his PBC stablemate David Benavidez unavailable? There’s no telling. PBC palace intrigue intrigues nobody anymore.
Benavidez hasn’t been justifying his talents these last few years, either, but at least he looks like he wants to hurt other men. Plant looks like he takes himself and his conditioning and his boxing seriously but he hasn’t nearly enough malice to make his living as more than a gatekeeper in anything resembling a good era of talented 168-pound men.
This is no such era, as evinced by Canelo’s capture of the division’s championship in only his second fight at the weight. If you are wont to accuse Canelo of cherrypicking, what does it say he cherrypicked The Ring champion, someone none of the other titlists thought to challenge?
Plant stopped short of calling Canelo’s name Saturday, after hurting his hand jabbing Truax, because he must know somewhere in the pit of his stomach Canelo is an entirely different entity. Canelo isn’t quite two years older than Plant but has nearly three times as many prizefights, exactly three times as many knockouts, and at least three times as much of any other thing Plant will ever have. Canelo looks on his new division as overfed and pathetic. It’s hard to argue with that assessment. Forget not, Canelo came up in the Mexican system, where he saw men of twice Caleb Plant’s talent ruined in their first 10 prizefights, if not sparring sessions, for the sin of being born to a smaller physique.
Canelo fights like he needs to justify his luck, like he knows he’s had it too easy; the larger body, the red hair, the golden promoter. By PBC super middleweight standards, though, Canelo’s career has been an ordeal of almost constant, unimaginable suffering.
It’s improbable Canelo watched Saturday’s match. If he did surely he was unimpressed. Turns out, in the ring Sweethands has a pretty sweet personality. Even with that inane crowd noise signaling to FOX’s audience each time any punch landed there wasn’t an iota of suspense. And let us hear none of the usual horseshit about an unchallenged fighter being so good it’s not his fault he wins 12-0. If you are good enough to outbox 37-year-old Caleb Truax 12-0 but not fighter enough to make him quit, you do not belong on television.
FOX should include an oddsmakers-veto clause in its broadcasting contracts, henceforth. If PBC announces a fight and the opening line is greater than 5-to-1 FOX ought to spike it. Put PBC on the line to overpay their fighters for insipid mismatches.
What’s that you say, they’ll just do it anyway? You’re right. Never mind.
The Benavidez-Plant situation puts the lie to all those pity pieces we’ve written over the years about rival promoters and sanctioning bodies undoing our beloved sport. The Ring’s numbers 1 and 2 super middleweights have one belt and one promoter, they’re both undefeated, and they don’t fight one another. Before anyone goes too hard on Plant’s matchmaking, take a look at Benavidez’s next opponent in March. At least Benavidez will ice Ronald Ellis – if you’re thinking that, like I am, you’re a sucker (like I am).
Finally, it’s unrewarding to write like this, to dump icewater on some young aficionado’s affinity for a fighter he’s been told, by Joe Buck of all people, is a surefire future superstar. If there are disinterested fans of Plant reading this – read: kids without a financial incentive for saying Plant is a future world champion – it’s not my intention to make you feel lied-to or plant seeds of cynicism for boxing to water regularly, even if that’s what I’ve done. Switch your allegiance to Canelo, today, friends, and stick with him till any super middleweight actually challenges him.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
