Many commentators heaped praise on Caleb Plant, saying he stayed in there and made things difficult for Canelo. But watch the whole fight again - Plant never attempted to WIN the fight, he simply made it difficult for Canelo to hit him. That's half of the objective. Should this be applauded? It's easy to make things difficult when you don't take any risk, anyone at world level could do what Plant did. You know what I like about Canelo? He clearly recognised at one point that the crowd was getting frustrated and he himself was getting frustrated and started to take more risk and go for it. That's what I like to see in a fighter.
So what did Plant do? He survived. So we are giving Plant props for surviving. And Plant survived because he took no risks in order to try to win.
Plant was stopped in the 11th round. Okay, he wasn't killed, so in literal terms he "survived". But in boxing terms, he was stopped, he did not survive.
No he outboxed Canelo for long periods and was winning on points irrespective of the judges BS scoring on the night. There was a reason Eddy Reynoso started tearing a strip of Canelo.
Okay, this is an interesting point. In regards to this fight, what do you mean when you say Plant was outboxing Canelo? Was he landing significant punches? Was he "effective" in the ultimate objective of a competitive sporting match? To win? What I'm trying to get at is our definitions of "outboxing" and "solid performance" have been forced to be watered down because of the decline of quality fights over the years.
All he needs to do is hit the target with his gloves that is what scores points. Talking about the effectiveness of his punches is an irrelevant nebulous concept that you cannot determine with anything close to accuracy. Effectiveness comes into play in judging if one fighter is aggressive and it’s determined that such aggressiveness is effective but fundamentally points are scored on punches landed not missed.
Many people had Plant winning 4 of the 10 rounds. Including one of the official judges. Think thats more than "just surviving". Secondly, Canelo had the benefit of being the power puncher. Of course he can start applying more pressure when Plant has no power and he (Canelo) is a knock out puncher. Ring generalship and slick boxing was Plants only path to victory. Would have been stupid for him to try anything else.
Totally agree with the OP Plant made no real attempt to win He was never gonna get anything on the cards so why try and win a few rounds here and there?
Posters on here have spaffed their load over Wilder facing Fury 3 times in recent years even though he got outboxed in all 3 fights and stopped in two of them.
He did try to win in the first half, then either he ran out of ideas or mental energy. I would have loved to see his reaction to the scorecards, I bet if he knew he still had a chance to win or draw in the 10th round that might have provided some push to keep going.
It seems to be nationality thing. Whenever an American is trying to hang in there trying to survive, it's lifted up as some vertuoso performance. When another nationality does it or even just sees the final bell, beware the American wrath. Jennings (US) v Wlad Chisora (UK) v Vitali Caleb Plant (US) v Canelo Saunders or Smith (UK) v Canelo Wilder (US) v Fury 2 and 3 Fury (UK) v Wilder 1
It was a good performance because no one expected that much from him & predicted he would get KO'ed alot earlier.
So with this in mind I ask you, what would you class as a better performance - One where Caleb Plant gives Canelo hell for 3 rounds, lands heavy punches while taking plenty back and eventually gets KO'd (like Hagler Vs Hearns), or Saturdays performance where he landed nothing significant but just stayed in there for longer? What performance would you give Plant more props for?
