Shawn Porter says Caleb Plant won’t scare Canelo Alvarez or David Benavidez away with the performance he put in last Saturday night in defeating an inactive Caleb Truax by a less than thrilling 12 round decision at the Shrine Exposition Center in Los Angles, California
Considering that former IBF super middleweight champion Truax (31-5-2, 19 KOs) was coming off a two-year layoff, an Achilles injury, and was up there in age at 37, Plant (21-0, 12 KOs) should have gotten him out of there.
Porter is buying into Plant’s injury excuse for why he fought at a pedestrian-level pace during the fight with Truax, but he still thinks that he needed to display more power than he did.
Shawn states for IBF 168-lb champion Plant to have a shot at beating WBA/WBC champ Canelo (54-1-2, 36 KOs), he’ll need more power. If this is as good as it gets for Plant, he’s going to have problems against Alvarez when or if they fight in September.
Porter also has concerns about Plant’s defense, as he was getting hit repeatedly by Truax’s right hands. Fortunately for Plant, Truax didn’t start throwing his right until later in the fight. If he started throwing rights early on, he might have knocked Plant out. Porter has doubts about Plant’s ability to take the right-hand shots from Canelo for an entire fight.
Plant can’t let Canelo hit him
“If they were to fight in May, I’m assuming that Caleb would need more time. He said he hurt his hand [against Caleb Truax], and I believe that,” said Porter to the AK & Barak show.
“I even felt like the pace he was fighting at and the strategy he was using early on in the fight, that didn’t carry through.
“At first, I assumed it was his conditioning and the length of the fight. But in retrospect, I do think it was the injury that caused his fighting style.
“Moving forward, I think the number one notable thing we saw in that fight was the overhand right that he continued to get hit by from Caleb Truax once Caleb Traux began to throw that punch.
“That’s a punch that he cannot take from Canelo Alvarez. If you can take it once or twice, you can’t take it consistently through the course of the fight like he did in the second half against Caleb Truax,” said Porter.
Plant wasn’t injured for his fight against Jose Uzcategui, and he looked just as bad against him as he did in the Truax fight.
It’s not likely that Plant will be able to keep Canelo from hitting him because he’s been getting nailed by everyone he’s faced.
Plant’s ability to get away from right-hand shots is nonexistent. Jose Uzcategui was hitting him over and over with those punches in the championship rounds of their fight in 2019.
Porter: Plant’s power must improve
“I still think he has the speed, and he has the power to fare with Canelo Alvarez,” Porter said about Plant. “I do think that’s a very great fight for both fighters.
“But he still has things to work on to get to the Canelo Alvarez level. It’s one thing to fight somebody but it’s another thing to fight somebody and beat somebody.
“Caleb Plant is the type of guy that I would want to fight and beat Canelo Alvarez. If Caleb Plant is getting in the ring with Canelo, I’m expecting him to beat Canelo.
“I’m not just expecting him to get in the ring with Canelo. In order to do that, his power has got to improve, and his focus through the course of 12 rounds has to improve as well,” said Porter.
Plant is 28-years-old, and by that age, he’s probably is as strong as he’s ever going to be. Sure, Plant can work on his punching technique, but he’s already throwing his shots with perfect form.
It’s just that there’s nothing behind them. He can try and hit the weights to gain strength, but that’ll just make him more muscular, and he’ll have problems making weight.
Plant does look a little small for a super middleweight. If he moved down in weight to 160, his power might be better in that weight class.
But he’s obviously not going to leave the 168lb division now that he’s in the position to get a massive payday against Alvarez in September.
That’s a payday that Plant has obviously been dreaming of getting all these years, and now he’s about to see it happen.
Plant didn’t scare off Canelo
“It’s crazy that this dude [Plant] had a dominating performance, but we’re still talking about the way it happened,” Porter said of Plant’s lackluster win over Caleb Truax.
“But if you look at the landscape; You got a guy that is 37, a guy that is coming off an injury. He had an Achilles, and he hadn’t been in the ring in two years.
“The list goes on from there, and you’re saying, ‘Caleb Plant, take care of this guy.’ It didn’t happen. I’m not let down by the performance, I’m not made at the performance.
“I thought he did great. I just thought he could do more. If you want to turn lemons into lemonade, you can say, this dude didn’t scare off anybody.
“He didn’t scare off Canelo Alvarez, and he didn’t are off David Benavidez. He still has fights in the future.
“You take a look at me, losing to Errol Spence Jr, but looking as good as I did, nobody wants to get in the ring with me. The best part about it is, he [Plant] still has room to go.
“I think people are still doubting him, which works to his advantage because of me knowing him; personally, you don’t want to doubt Caleb Plant because you’ll get surprised,” said Porter.
The fact that Canelo wants to become the undisputed champion at 168 shows that he’s sized Plant up and feels he’s no threat to him.
When Canelo fought at 160 and 175, he didn’t try and become the undisputed champion in those weight divisions. Why? Because he would need to beat Jermall Charlo, Gennadiy Golovkin, Demetrius Andrade, Dimitry Bivol, and Artur Beterbiev.
Caleb won’t be avoided
“I think he left room for him to get fights in the future where you know if he’d looked brilliant, other people might have shied away from the fight,” said Porter about Caleb.
“Again, you have to take a look at the opponent, the challenger. Caleb Truax is no stranger to the professional boxing game.
“If anything, he knows how to survive. He’s got grit and determination. Internally, you can beat a guy physically, but internally, if you can’t beat someone internally, they’re always going to be there, they’re always going to be around.
“I knew going in that Caleb Truax, even though he was going to be a dog that was going to be that was going to get hit with everything, I knew he was going to be a dog that was going to stay alive.
“You also have to take into account that he’s fighting Caleb Truax, a guy that was a former champion, and a guy that knows how to get around the ring, if anything, would survive.
“By saying that, we didn’t see Caleb Plant give him anything to have to survive against. I think when you see that, you’re ‘Alright, I didn’t see enough from Caleb Plant.’
“I do think that it was dominating performance and I thought he looked great,” said Porter about Plant.
With Plant’s performance against Truax, he definitely won’t be avoided by the contenders and champions. Plant looks vulnerable.