Plant: Dirrell Couldn’t Even Hold His Title Long Enough For Us To Have A Unification Match

Caleb Plant always figured that a fight with Anthony Dirrell was inevitable.

The matchup first landed in Plant’s radar when their respective title reigns overlapped four roughly seven months. Any hope of securing a title unification bout ended seven months later, when Dirrell turned over his WBC super middleweight crown to David Benavidez in a September 2019 ninth-round stoppage defeat while Plant was still unbeaten and in his first year as the IBF titlist.

“I didn’t know for sure but I always knew it would be a possibility,” Plant said of eventually facing Dirrell. “But he couldn’t even hold his title long enough for us to have a unification match.”

The pair of contentious rivals finally meet as part of an October 15 Fox Sports Pay-Per-View show from Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

It will come more than three-and-a-half years after they won their respective belts six weeks apart in 2019. Plant (21-1, 12KOs) claimed the IBF super middleweight title in a January 2019 twelve-round, unanimous decision win over Jose Uzcategui, while Dirrell entered his second title reign after claiming the vacant WBC belt in a February 2019 technical split decision win over Avni Yildirim.

As was the case during his first reign more than four years prior, Dirrell (34-2-2, 25KOs) lost the belt in his first fight back in the ring after claiming title status.

“He wins his title, he loses it right away,” Plant noted of Dirrell’s history over his two brief title reigns. “He beats a blown-up middleweight in Sakio Bika, then he loses it to Badou Jack. He gets it back then loses it right back. He ain’t ever had one successful title defense. So, we ain’t had the chance (to unify).”

Plant—a 30-year-old former titlist from Las Vegas by way of Ashland City, Tennessee—made three successful defenses of his IBF belt before losing via eleventh-round knockout to Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez in their undisputed championship clash last November 6 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Dirrell returned to the win column on the undercard of that Showtime PPV event, earning a fourth-round stoppage of Marcos Hernandez.

Neither Plant nor Dirrell have fought since that night. Their grudge match will serve as the chief support on the Fox Sports PPV headlined by a WBC heavyweight semifinal title eliminator between former champ Deontay Wilder (42-2-1, 41KOs) and resurgent contender Robert Helenius (31-3, 20KOs).

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox