Canelo Álvarez vs. Caleb Plant Preview

Boxing returns to its Mecca once more this weekend as Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Arena plays host to the sport’s biggest star, Saúl "Canelo" Álvarez, as the reigning WBA, WBC, WBO and The Ring super middleweight champion defends his titles against surging contender Caleb Plant.

Honestly, there isn’t a great deal to say about this one as the short of the long is that Plant doesn’t hold many advantages over Canelo. Plant is a tidy operator and an unequivocal world level talent; he operates through a solid jab which he isn’t afraid of doubling and tripling up to set up his offence; he has very good footwork and lateral movement that allows him to set up his counters and move out of range and is also a willing combination puncher.

However, unfortunately for Plant, Canelo is tried and tested. His résumé is filled with opposition of a diverse stylistic makeup so there’s not much Plant can bring to the table that Canelo hasn’t proven more than capable of dealing with. Gennady Golovkin is the owner of one of the best jabs in the sport, Danny Jacobs is a fast and willing counter puncher and Billy Joe Saunders’ footwork and movement ranks at the top end of anything you can see at in the 160-168lbs range at the moment. All three opponents fell victim to the great Mexican.

Canelo is currently sitting at the short price of 1/12 and it’s hard to argue against the merit of that. It’s certainly possible that Plant’s movement early on leads to a slow start from Canelo, as the Mexican takes time to gather his reads and gauge Plant’s reactions to his own offence, but as the fight progresses we expect Canelo to begin to routinely open up his American counterpart and slow him down with body work. We think Canelo gets the job done in the latter rounds of the fight, winning by stoppage around the 9-12 mark. You can find this at a price of 7/2 with SkyBet.