Canelo KO's Plant to make history

And much more from a mega night in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS — Since the IBF created the super middleweight division in 1984, with the other organizations eventually following suit a few years later, it has been a home for many great fighters, including Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Roy Jones Jr., James Toney, Joe Calzaghe, Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank, Andre Ward, Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler and others.

All of them won world titles. Some even unified belts. But none could ever claim the mantle of being the undisputed champion by fully unifying the division, be it in the three- or four-belt era.

But Canelo Alvarez, already boxing’s pound-for-pound king and biggest star, did it in resounding fashion on Saturday night and now stands alone in 168-pound division history.

Ring champion Alvarez turned in a masterful performance before scoring a sensational 11th-round knockout of Caleb Plant to retain his WBC, WBO and WBA titles while violently taking Plant’s IBF belt to become the first undisputed super middleweight world champion before a sold-out and overwhelmingly pro-Alvarez crowd of 16,586 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

“It hasn’t been easy to get to this point, but with your support, my family and my team we’ve gotten really far,” Alvarez told the crowd. “This is for everybody, especially for Mexico. This is another one for our team. We did it tonight.”

Alvarez became just the sixth male fighter to fully unify a division, and the first Latino, in the four-belt era, joining middleweight Bernard Hopkins (2004), middleweight Jermain Taylor (2005), junior welterweight Terence Crawford (2017), cruiserweight Oleksandr Usyk (2018) and junior welterweight Josh Taylor (2021).

“This means so much for the history of Mexico to become an undisputed champion,” Alvarez said. “There are only six undisputed champions in history (in the four-belt era). It keeps me happy and very motivated to be one of the six.”

I covered the fight for RingTV, the Ring magazine website. Please read the full story here: https://www.ringtv.com/629900-canelo-alvarez-stops-caleb-plant-in-11-becoming-first-to-fully-unify-at-168/

The scorecard

Here is the official Nevada State Athletic Commission scorecard for Canelo-Plant.

The undercard

Former two-time WBC super middleweight world titlist Anthony Dirrell came into his fight with “Madman” Marcos Hernandez in the co-feature hoping a strong performance would persuade the main event winner to give him another title shot.

Whether Alvarez will do that remains to be seen, but Dirrell did his part, dominating Hernandez  before scoring a spectacular one-punch knockout in the fourth round.

The undercard also featured  former WBC junior featherweight world titlist Rey Vargas, who was returning from a 2½-year layoff caused by a promotional change, the coronavirus pandemic and a broken left leg. He vowed he would show no rust after such a long sabbatical in his move up to featherweight against Leonard Baez and he was right in a virtual shutout decision win.

I wrote about those two bouts and all the other undercard fights, which you can read about here: https://www.ringtv.com/629892-canelo-plant-undercard-anthony-dirrell-kos-marcos-hernandez-rey-vargas-outpoints-leo-baez/

Post-fight thoughts

After the fight, I joined my friends at Boxing Social to discuss Canelo’s performance and what could be and should be next for the pound-for-pound king. Please check out the video here:

Post-fight dinner

After a busy, tiring and fun fight week, it was time to unwind after the post-fight press conference. I got together with my longtime friends at Wolfgang Puck’s at the MGM Grand. We’ll have great memories from this historic fight. Here I am with the boys: Los Angeles Times columnist Dylan Hernandez (left), Norm Frauenheim from 15 Rounds, Lance Pugmire (my lineal successor at USA Today), famed artist Mohammed Mubarak, legendary publicist Uncle Bill Caplan and yours truly.

Show and tell

Showtime PPV posters? Check. Site posters? Check. Programs? Check. There was just one thing left I needed to add to my collection from Canelo-Plant, and here it is. A mint full ticket.

Canelo and Dirrell-Hernandez photos: Esther Lin/Showtime

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