Caleb Plant Puts Down Anthony Dirrell in WBC Eliminator!
Two former super middleweight champions went to battle at Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn, New York as Anthony “The Dog” Dirrell (34-3-2, 25 KO’s) faced Caleb “Sweethands” Plant (22-1, 13 KO’s) in a WBC world title eliminator.
A two-time WBC champion, Dirrell, has bounced back from a ninth-round TKO loss to reigning WBC interim champ David Benavidez in September 2019. Dirrell’s last outing was a fourth-round stoppage of Marcos Hernandez on November 6 on the undercard of Plant’s unification match with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Although, Plant would lose that bout to Canelo, who then became the first undisputed super middleweight champion in history. Age of 38, The Dog had found himself in a must-win situation.
Plant is the ex-IBF champ. This was his first bout since losing the title to Alvarez. Sweethands was boxing well in the first half of that bout before finally getting put down twice and stopped in the eleventh. Looking to become a world champion once again, Plant entered the ring laser-focused.
0 TO 100 REAL QUICK!!
The first three rounds had a bunch of rough and tumble behavior, clinches, and warnings from referee Harvey Dock. Yet, outside of this, the two mindful counterpunchers didn’t provide a great deal of satisfying action.
Rounds four through six did see a slight uptick in offense, in which Sweethands appeared to enjoy a slight edge. Between their counterpunching nature and Plant’s active footwork however, meaningful action was few and far in between. The crowd at hand was often heard booing the tepid pace.
Out of nowhere, Plant clobbered Dirrell with a crushing left hook that left him a heap of tangled and useless limbs center ring. Referee Harvey Dock could have counted to 500 and The Dog was not getting up. The sensational win for Plant, who is generally considered a lighter puncher, came in the ninth. In the post-fight interview, Plant didn’t specify who he wanted next outside of working his way back to a Canelo rematch.
By: Bakari Simpson
