- Mexican star stops Plant to unify super-middleweight title belts
- Álvarez credits trainer for calming him during tricky first rounds
- Canelo Álvarez v Caleb Plant – as it happened
Saúl ‘Canelo’ Álvarez paid tribute to Caleb Plant after he had knocked out the American in the 11th round of their world super-middleweight unification title fight in Las Vegas on Saturday night. Álvarez ended the fight in brutally conclusive fashion but he admitted that Plant had been a difficult opponent who had shown great skill and made the first half of the bout a highly competitive and absorbing contest.
Asked at the post-fight press conference at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas if he had felt frustrated by Plant, who was the busier boxer at the outset and won at least two of the early rounds, the 31-year-old Mexican said: “To be honest with you, yeah. I was a little bit frustrated – especially in the first five rounds. But then the second half of the fight was exactly how we envisaged it. We don’t have to take anything away from Caleb Plant. He’s a great fighter and he made a great effort tonight. But in the end we came out with the win. That’s all that matters really, So even though we had that frustration in the first five rounds the second half of the fight was ideal.”
