LAS VEGAS — Every athlete's path to greatness is different. Sure, there may be similarities along the way. But the nooks and crannies are not the same. Caleb Plant took the road less traveled.
Plant grew up in a small town called Ashland City, Tennessee, with 4,538 people. Ashland City wasn't the town where dreams were made to where you'd end up being wildly successful. Instead, the city was dominated by drugs and poverty. The Plant family was like the result of the small town as Plant's mother, Beth, battled drug addiction, and the family lived in a trailer when Plant was younger. A kid having to live under these conditions isn't supposed to rise up, win the IBF super-middleweight title, and challenge boxing's marquee star and pound-for-pound king, Canelo Alvarez, on Saturday to determine the weight's first-ever four-belt undisputed champion.
Boxing was going to be Plant's way out of Ashland City. In his mind, that was his only option. Under the guise of his father, Richie, the Plants made the most of their unfortunate circumstances. Father and son built a boxing ring by using tape, putting it on the ground in the shape of a boxing ring, and having parents lock arms in a chain as the ropes. Those old-school tactics led Plant to have a promising amateur career which resulted in him being an alternate in the 2012 Summer Olympics.
In May 2013, Plant became a father when his daughter Alia was born. Becoming a father is one of the greatest gifts a person can receive. Unfortunately for Plant, his life was about to take another unexpected turn as the then-20-year-old and his former partner, Carman Jean Briscoe-Lee, were told that Alia was born with a brain abnormality that resulted in hundreds of seizures per day. Nevertheless, Plant would lay with Alia and be by her bedside through the painful months before passing away at 20 months.
Plant made a vow to Alia that one day he'd become a world champion. He fulfilled that promise on January 13, 2019, defeating José Uzcátegui via unanimous decision to become the IBF 168-pound champion.
"I know exactly how I got here," Plant told DAZN News. "This didn't happen by accident. I'm not here talking to you by accident. I planned this. I knocked this out, me and my dad when we first started. And then the team’s been able to follow up with this since then. But this is not by accident. This happened on purpose. So I know how I got here. It was through my hard work and my dedication, a lot of sacrifices, and most importantly, a lot of self-belief. I encourage everyone out there, if you feel in your heart and you feel that it can happen, then you should believe in that, and you should stick to that."
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On Sept. 22, at the introductory news conference, each guy threw punches, resulting in Plant suffering a small cut under his right eye.
Plant is conducting a media session at his home gym, City Athletic Boxing Gym. At this time, Plant hadn't discussed the incident. Instead, he was focusing solely on preparing for the fight.
The narrative coming into this weekend is the caliber of opposition Plant's faced compared to Alvarez, with the latter also being in more high-pressured situations. The Mexican star has stepped inside the ring against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Gennadiy Golovkin (two times), and Miguel Cotto. In addition, Plant has been criticized for making title defenses against Mike Lee, Vincent Feigenbutz and Caleb Truax.
It's the Feigenbutz affair that makes Plant feel he's ready for the pressure of a fight of this magnitude. The championship fight was in Nashville, less than 30 minutes from Ashland City. Everything that encompasses fighting in your backyard, Plant had to deal with. Plant feels that, and another moment, helped him prepare for the ultimate test in Alvarez.
"Definitely," Plant admits. "In other fights as well (like) the (Manny) Pacquiao-(Keith) Thurman undercard (the Lee fight), when we did the "Grand Arrivals" and we flew to New York and flew to LA the next day and did a lot of media, a lot of press. Then fighting back at home, you got people pulling you this way and pulling you that way for tickets. There’s a lot at stake. It's easy to fold under that pressure. But I feel like, again, you look at that performance, that's probably like my most complete performance. In a situation where a lot of fighters, they go home, and they fight for their hometown, and they come up short."
Saturday has been earmarked as the crowning of Canelo (56-1, 38 KOs) making his history and holding the IBF, WBA, WBC, and WBO belts over his body. Oddsmakers agree with the sentiment and feel Plant is a speedbump to Alvarez's road to undisputed. According to BetMGM, Alvarez is a -1000 favorite to capture Plant's title. Meanwhile, Plant is a shocking +600, despite being 21-0 with 12 knockouts.
None of that bothers Plant. On the contrary, confidence is oozing off of him because of his journey to get to this point. Because of that and adding in what happened at the presser almost six weeks ago, gives Plant the belief he has the mental and physical edge to do what Callum Smith, Avni Yildirim, and Billy Joe Saunders failed to do since Alvarez decided to make 168 pounds his new weight class.
"Listen, whatever transpired at the press conference, afterwards he couldn't even talk," Plant said. "He couldn’t even get on the mic and talk. He was up there stuttering, and his face was as red as his hair. But I got up there and got out there and put together whatever I had to say, and I got it off I felt like in a good fashion. I got across what I needed to get across. But I felt like he couldn't even get up there. He was stuttering. His feathers seem to be ruffled.
"I wasn't really expecting it. It's not like I wasn't expecting it. But at the same time, I wasn't really expecting him to do that. That seems to be a bit out of his character. Something about me strokes his ego the wrong way. But if he thinks he's irritated now, November 6, he's going to be really irritated when all those belts are wrapped around my waist."
The Canelo vs. Plant fight will not air on DAZN. However, The DAZN Boxing Show will be in Las Vegas during fight week for live episodes, exclusive interviews and more.
Also, the DAZN News website will bring you all the live text updates and results from Canelo-Plant at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday night.