Plant Wants to Know Why No Face-off
Well, after the weigh-in, both WBA super middleweight champion Caleb “Sweet Hands” Plant (18-0, 10 KO’s) and Mike “White Bear” Lee (21-0, 11 KO’s) have made weight. With that, their fight is all set to go! Somewhat surprisingly, the bigger Mike Lee weighed in a full pound under the limit at 167. Plant made weight right on the 168lbs mark.
NO MORE MISTER NICE GUYS
As fight has drawn closer and closer, the tension and bickering has noticeably risen. The milder mannered Lee began airing more of his discontent, while the low-key Plant became a bit more visually animated. At one point, Sweet Hands made the shape of a gun with his hand. Next, he put it in Lee’s face and gestured as if he pulled the trigger. White Bear found the move to be highly distasteful and classless.
Whenever questioned about the defending WBA super middleweight champion’s actions, Lee reassured that he was undismayed and would prove his worth in the ring. In the last several days, the White Bear has taken to saying that he truly believes that all of Plant’s aggressive talk are actually indications of his own self-doubt and outright fear of the situation. Ironically, Sweet Hands also believes that Lee is greatly fearful of the upcoming prizefight on FOX.
As evidence of his theory, Plant has essentially charged Lee with being a coward for evading their face-off on FOX. Prior to the pay-per-view portion of Pacquiao v Thurman, there will be a telecast aired on the regular FOX network, and this is where Plant will defend against Lee. It has become customary for the headlining fighters of the FOX telecast do a ‘face-off’ segment to help promote the broadcast. For reasons unknown, Mike Lee opted to skip the segment all together. This was the first time that there has not been a FOX Face-Off.
IF YOU SCARED, SAY YOU SCARED
“We’re the first FOX fight, out of all the main events, who didn’t go to LA to do a face-to-face. We didn’t get to sit down. Did anyone notice that? That we didn’t get to sit down and do a face-to-face. I’m wondering why FOX got an email saying, ‘Mike won’t be showing up and there will be no face-to-face because there is bad blood’.” ~Caleb Plant, WBA super middleweight champion
Once under the gun at the presser, Lee really couldn’t, or wouldn’t, supply a logical rationale for why he did not show up. Admittedly, it was a rather bad look for Team Lee, especially as they had to know this would come up. Yet they still had no form of reasonable response ready. There is little doubt that Team Plant interpreted the White Bear’s relative silence as confirmation that he was uncomfortable with sitting down with Sweet Hands to do the promo plug.
“First off, that’s a bit of an understatement compared to all the bad blood that there’s been throughout boxing. Secondly, y’all think if there was really bad blood that Caleb Plant wouldn’t show up? That I wouldn’t want to be a part of that, if there was actual bad blood? Y’all know me better than that. So, I just have a question for Mike of why we didn’t get to do a face-to-face, cause if he really felt like he was going to beat me, since all that many people don’t know him, in or outside of boxing, wouldn’t he go do that face-to-face to publicize this fight and to publicize himself? That way, after this fight, his brand would be that much bigger. That’s cause he knows he’s not going to beat me.” ~Caleb Plant, WBA super middleweight champion
By: Bakari Simpson
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