It’s going to be an extremely busy night for combat sports.
All of the super-middleweight belts will be at stake this fall.
WBA/WBC/WBO champion Canelo Alvarez will unify with IBF champion Caleb Plant on November 6th, likely at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena in a PBC on FOX PPV. The Mexican superstar announced the news through social media following a report from ESPN’s Mike Coppinger.
Este 6 de noviembre vamos a poner al boxeo de México en todo lo alto. ¡Vamos por el cinturón que nos falta!
This Nov 6th we’ll put mexican boxing on top. Going for the missing belt!#Undisputed #CaneloPlant@Hennessy @ValueGF pic.twitter.com/cxOjrZbzJh
— Canelo Alvarez (@Canelo) August 19, 2021
This fight was initially targeted for September before talks fell apart at the last minute over what Plant termed as “ridiculous requests” made by Canelo’s camp. Well presumably that got smoothed over and now this fight is back on, just at a later date.
Alvarez (56-1-2, 38 KOs) picked up his first major super-middleweight belt last December when he dominated Callum Smith to win the WBA and vacant WBC titles. After a glorified tune-up/mandatory title defense versus Avni Yildirim in February, Canelo busted up Billy Joe Saunders’ eye in May to win the WBO championship. He’ll be favored over Plant to become undisputed champion at 168 lbs.
Plant (21-0, 12 KOs) won the IBF championship with an entertaining decision win over Jose Uzcategui, who was dropped twice by the Tennessean. His string of title defense opposition has been, to put it mildly, underwhelming. An easy TKO of Mike Lee, a hometown TKO of Germany’s Vincent Feigenbutz, and this past January a decision over Caleb Truax. Plant’s disclosed purse vs. Truax for that FOX televised event was $750,000; it’s believed he’ll make at least $10 million against Alvarez, who’s slated for north of $40 million and then some when factoring in Mexican TV revenue and other sponsorships.
It is, of course, hard to ignore the fact that on the same night as Canelo vs. Plant, UFC 268 will be on the other side of the country at Madison Square Garden in New York. Welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and rival Colby Covington are scheduled as the night’s headliners, with Justin Gaethje and Michael Chandler serving as one of the featured bouts.