David Benavidez Overwhelms Plant In Impressive Decision Win

It was a stirring and entertaining main event for Showtime/PBC pay per view and in the end, unbeaten WBC interim super middleweight champ, David Benavidez, out worked, out slugged and overpowered former IBF world champ Caleb Plant for a 12 round unanimous decision.

The highly anticipated bout capped the card at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and saw Benavidez win on scores of 117 – 111, 116 – 112 and 115- 113. Big Fight Weekend had the fight also 117-111 for Benavidez.

David Benavidez is the bad man in Sin City 😈@Benavidez300 earns the massive UD win to stay unbeaten. #BenavidezPlant pic.twitter.com/fD5nH9twTC

— SHOWTIME Boxing (@ShowtimeBoxing) March 26, 2023

The bout began with Plant being effective, while Benavidez started, as he traditionally does, slowly. Plant, who had previously suffered his first loss to undisputed 168 lb champ Canelo Alvarez in November of 2021, was the aggressor, scoring more effectively with good combinations on the inside. Those were including left hooks the body and then to the head. However, Plant’s early effectiveness began to wane as Benavidez leaned in on him and would score with shots on the inside himself.

Clearly by the middle of the fight, Benavidez, now 27-0, 23 KOs, was landing the harder punches and backing Blant up on a regular basis. The second half of the fight belonged to the unbeaten native of Phoenix Arizona and his punch output, connect rate and damage being done was far greater than what Plant could fire back with. In the 8th round Plant suffered a cut on his forehead over the top of his right eye from what appeared to be a clash of heads.

Benavidez poured it on Plant late

The blood flowed from that cut and also from Plant’s nose and mouth the remainder of the fight.

Benavidez saw the blood and continued to pour on his offense, staggering Plant, now 22-2, in the 10th round of the fight with a vicious series of punches. Although Plant survived the round, his own corner with Steven “Breadman” Edwards questioned whether the fight should be stopped or not? But, Plant wanted to try to continue.

He took more serious punishment from Benavidez in the 11th round and referee Kenny Bayless was looking closely at stopping the fight on a couple of occasions. However, Plant survived and got into the 12th round and to his credit with his face a swollen and bloody mess, was still firing back at Benavidez. But, Plant’s shots had very little on them.

For his part, Benavidez continued to wail on Plant with hard left and rights late in the fight to solidify the easy decision win. All three judges agreed with Benavidez’s dominance giving him every round from the sixth until the conclusion.

Final Compubox numbers had Benavidez out-landing Plant 180-68 in power punches with most of that dominance coming in the final four rounds of the bout.

“I had to take it step by step, round by round,” Benavidez said to Showtime in the ring. “Caleb Plant is a tough fighter. He’s not going to give you everything in the first couple of rounds…I just didn’t show that I was a great puncher tonight. I showed defense, head movement and I was able to move around the ring and cut the ring really good.”

“I hit him with a lot of hard shots, but I like this guy now, and I don’t want to keep it (animosity) going,” Benavidez said of Plant. This was after a nasty war of words in the pre-fight had Benavidez telling the media that he had no respect for Plant and no intention to shake his hand or be friends with him after the bout.

The victory further position’s Benavidez to be a potential opponent for Canelo in the near term. Alvarez will be fighting England’s John Ryder in his home country of Mexico coming on May 6th

In the ring post fight, Benavidez made clear he hopes to be Alvarez’s next opponent come September.

The bottom line on Saturday was he was the stronger and fresher fighter as the bout wore on and took Plant apart in the final four rounds to secure the wide decision win.