Plant, Charlo face separate foes needing wins to set up grudge match
Super middleweight underdogs Armando Resendiz and Thomas LaManna aim for upsets to wreck the best laid PBC plans
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Caleb Plant and Jermall Charlo have circled each for the past few years. They don’t particularly like one another and the prospect of a fight between them has festered.
They have not been shy about calling each other out and they have already scrapped for free in a July 2023 scuffle.
They were back stage at the Terence Crawford-Errol Spence Jr. weigh-in in Las Vegas and were involved in an altercation, part of which was recorded and went viral on social media.
Plant slapped Charlo and said it was because he had disrespected his wife, Jordan, who was with him, and also in retaliation for Charlo pulling on his beard and then doing it a second time even after being told not to do it again.
A fight between them has seemingly been inevitable and is on the drawing board by Premier Boxing Champions and TGB Promotions for this fall.
But first the two will appear in separate bouts as significant favorites on Saturday (Prime Video, 8 p.m. ET) at Michelob ULTRA Arena at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Victories by both would set the stage for their showdown that has been a long time coming.
Plant, a former IBF super middleweight titleholder, who lost that belt by 11th-round knockout to Canelo Alvarez in their unification fight for the undisputed title in 2021, will defend the WBA interim 168-pound title for the first time when he faces Armando Resendiz in the main event.
Charlo, a former junior middleweight and middleweight titlist, will fight as a full-fledged super middleweight for the first time when he ends an 18-month layoff against Thomas LaManna in the 10-round co-feature.
Plant, who knocked out then-unbeaten but untested Trevor McCumby in the ninth round to win the vacant interim belt in September, would have been happy to go right to the fight with Charlo. But with Charlo having been out of the ring, he was not going to come back from the layoff against Plant, especially in a new weight class and having changed trainers. Charlo has parted ways with longtime trainer Ronnie Shields and returned to Hylon Williams Sr., who trained him as an amateur and in the beginning of his pro career.