What holds Plant back from being an elite fighter?

This, the guy is just not that good, he’s just well promoted. Nothing about Plant has ever impressed me, except the Dirrell ko. People also just tend to overrate defensive fighters nowadays. Plant puts all of his energy into looking good for the first half of a fight, that’s it.

 

Giving Canelo a competitive fight did not impress you? Most people had it close on the cards before he got stopped.

 

Not really since Canelo’s a slow starter and Plant gets all his work down in the early rounds. Think Canelo studied Plant well and knew when to slow things down and turn it up.

 

I thought the moment go to Plant vs Canelo and he didn't fight near his best. His performance vs Benavidez was impressive considering how Benavidez destroyed Andrade. I think Plant is quite a high level fighter and being underrated now.

 

Plant' skills is way overrated.

He got beaten by Benavidez, who is caveman in terms of skills compared to James Toney, Mike McCallum or other great fighters. Hell, even Mikkel Kessler was way better technically than Benavidez. Yet Plant clearly lost the fight to Benavidez despite having clear edge in speed

 

He's got good head movement which makes him harder to hit but he doesn't use that to create counters. He doesn't counter punch at all which means guys can walk him down and once in a defensive position, he has nothing to prevent his opponent from going right at him. He then has to wait until his opponent stops throwing before he again can mount any offence.

Compare that to Canelo, who will make you miss, even wait for you to lead and then punish you with a counter. If you're an opponent going at Canelo you fear opening up with your shots because you'll get countered. With Plant that isn't the case, just keep pressuring, wait til he backs up on the ropes or a corner and once he stops throwing you can throw knowing nothing is coming back until you decide to disengage.

So many fighters like Plant adopt this flashy hands down style, mimicking guys like RJJ, Ali, Mayweather, etc but don't understand the real techniques and skills being utilised, they can only create a poor copy of what those fighters did due to a lack of ring IQ. Adam Azim is another fighter who does this and while some on here think he's the next big British name to break the world stage, he looks more like a Josh Kelly to me, all flash, but the real skills like counter punching which are harder to master are beyond him and Plant.

So ring IQ is basically what is holding him back.

 

A few people said power and that isn't true, you really don't need a whole lot of power to get by and be very successful.

He has stamina and durability issues, and not even at the top level. People clearly forget he got a big lead against Uzcat just to damn near fall apart late but was so far ahead it didn't matter. Anyone who is prime and really has that dog in them will always give him hell. Because they're gonna walk to him and walk to him until he slows down.