Typically, press conferences to announce a significant fight are boring. But, unfortunately, that didn't happen at Tuesday's presser to promote the undisputed super middleweight title fight between Canelo Alvarez and Caleb Plant.
At the beginning of the press conference, Alvarez and Plant were introduced. They went face-to-face, and in a matter of seconds, the WBA (super), WBC, and WBO 168-pound champion took off his sunglasses and stared deeply into Plant's eyes. The IBF titlist put his hands behind his back and started talking to Alvarez, who proceeded to talk back at the Nashville native.
With no one in between them, Alvarez and Plant continued to jaw at one another, with neither guy giving up an inch. Then, Alvarez gave Plant a hard shove and calling him a motherf— er three times. Plant walked up to Alvarez and threw a looping left hook, which Alvarez backed to avoid the shot.
Next, Alvarez hit Plant with a short left hand to the face, which caused a massive cut under the American's right eye. Blood was pouring out profusely and took awhile for it to stop. Multiple people rushed the stage to jump in and make sure it didn't escalate any further. The verbal sparring continued for several minutes before Alvarez and Plant finally took a seat to begin the presser.
The heated confrontation was partly due to Plant insisting in the lead-up to the press conference that Alvarez is a cheater.
Many pundits feel Alvarez is going to run through Plant and become the first-ever undisputed 168-pound champion. However, Plant (21-0, 12 KOs) looks forward to upsetting the apple cart.
"Only thing better than proving people right is proving people wrong, and I’ve been doing that my whole life," Plant said.
Alvarez (56-1-2, 38 KOs) has a different idea and plans on finishing Plant and showing why he's expected to win.
“I’m going to knock him out. 8 rounds. Easy," Alvarez boldly said.
"You're not on my level."