Former IBF super middleweight champion Caleb ‘Sweethands’ Plant made a strange call out of Jermall Charlo on Sunday, letting him know that he’d like to fight him by the end of the year.
The year has just begun, and Plant (21-1, 12 KOs) has no fights scheduled, and yet he’s telling Jermall (32-0, 22 KOs) he wants to put something together for the end of the year.
WBC middleweight champion Charlo has bigger fish to fry in a potential fight with Canelo Alvarez. According to ESPN, Canelo and Jermall are in talks for a fight on May 7th. If the Canelo-Charlo fight happens, Plant will be out of luck in his hopes of luring Jermall into fighting him.
Plant isn’t saying WHY he wants to wait until the end of 2022 before fighting Charlo, but it could be that he wants more time to recover from his knockout loss to the superstar Canelo (57-1-2, 39 KOs). ‘Sweethands’ was hurt badly in the 11th round and put on the deck by Canelo.
Although Plant says he wanted to continue fighting, he was in no condition to be fighting. The referee did him a real solid by stopping the contest rather than letting Canelo poleaxe him. The way Plant looked, he needed saving by the referee. Plant’s right eye was all jacked up, and he looked broken. Canelo broke him.
You’ve been indirect @FutureOfBoxing so I’ll be straight forward. We can figure it out by the end of the year. UR EZ WORK. pic.twitter.com/gBfAmDhaFE
— CalebPlant (@SweetHandsPlant) January 9, 2022
Plant made over $10 million for his fight with Canelo, and from the looks of it, he doesn’t want to take a significant pay cut by fighting a regular run-of-the-hill contender at 168 to bounce back from his loss last November.
Going back to making the smaller money that he used to before he got a big payday against Canelo has got to be hard for Plant. Hence, he’s trying to keep the money rolling in by taking Jermall into fighting him.
Plant vs. Charlo would be a pay-per-view fight on Showtime if it happens, and there’s a reasonable chance that it will if Jermall doesn’t fight Canelo.
Plant would have a decent chance of winning if the fight happens, as long as he doesn’t get worn down with Charlo’s nonstop bombs that he throws. Jermall is one of those fighters that fire huge shots, putting massive pressure on his opponents.
If Plant doesn’t have the power to keep Jermall off of him, he’s going to get knocked out like in his last fight against Canelo Alvarez.
Jermall vs. Plant isn’t the fight that the boxing public wants right now. They want to see Canelo-Jermall or Canelo-Benavidez.
Charlo has put on some exciting fights in the last three years, beating Juan Macias Montiel, Sergiy Derevyanchenko, Brandon Adams, Dennis Hogan, and Matt Korobov.