A new story from SI Boxing with Chris Mannix

Automatic TRANSCRIPT

I don't know who believed that he was going to fight Jaime bungie, but we can get to that later on. Quickly. But I guess who is he going to fight? Devour might have to wind up waiting until September, and then I guess he wouldn't have fought in about ten ish months or so from the time he fought Gilberto Ramirez. So we'll get to people, but his team told me they've got three options. They're working through right now. One, at least nominally, was mongeau. I don't know who the other two are. And I don't know how you're going to hope to make any money if it's not Joshua, if it's not Jaime mongeau, I don't know who's out there that would generate the kind of payday that people's becoming accustomed to making at this point. So we'll talk about people in a minute. Last thought on plant Benavidez plant going to be 31 years old this summer lost two of his last three fights, granted to come at the highest level. What do you think his future is? Took a pretty good beating. You know, one thing that Benavidez said that came true. He said he was going to put it on Caleb Plant. And, you know, credit tequila plant for hanging in there for 12 rounds, but he took a lot of punches in that fight. What do you think is the future for him? Yeah, Chrissy, David Benavidez said exactly that in a close like press conference. He said, I told you I was going to come here and beat up Caleb Plant and that's exactly what I did. Caleb Plant, I get this sense from Caleb Plant has made a lot of money. Yeah. He's done very well. He's been managed well. He's been advised well. And he's done very well financially in these two of his last three 5 even in his last fighting, but he made 7 figures for it as a fight against Anthony Darrell as well. So for his last three fights, he's made a lot of money, I don't get the sense that he's going to be the kind of guy. He only has 24 professional fights. He's 22 and two now. I don't get the sense that he's even going to be a guy that approaches having 30 professional fights before he walks away from the sport because he's done so well financially. And really overachieved, if you look at where he came from, he came from Ashland city, Tennessee. It is not a boxing hotbed that the state of Tennessee in itself is not a boxing hotbed that produces a lot of elite level fighters and Caleb Plant basically made it to the elite level. He made it to the elite level of boxing. Some people might not consider him quite elite level, but he's pretty good. I mean, he's one of the top 5 super middleweights in the world for sure. The top three, according to David Benavidez, who just shared the ring with him for 12 rounds. So I see him taking a nice long break, Chris and assess, I think I'm fighting again. But I think as I take a nice long break, let his body heal, then see where he's at, see what's left in the super middleweight division because I don't think he's the kind of guy who's going to move up to one 75. I think he's going to try he doesn't belong there, frankly. I think he'll try to get an interesting fight set, but he's already thought Canelo and he's already thought David Benavidez and lost decisively to both guys. So I don't know what's there for him. But he is the name, he's a talented guy and he's still in his physical prime, but again, I just don't think he's going to be the kind of guy who hangs around too long and is one of those cautionary tales. I think he's going to do well with his money and kind of ride off into the sunset earlier than most fighters. Yeah, I think you're dead on when it comes to how much money he's made. And I'm curious what the impact will be on a mentally. Does he have the same fire to go to the gym every day, knowing that the next step for him is going to be kind of a rebuilding type fight. Maybe two rebuilding type fights to get him back to a level of, I don't know, does he really want to fight a David morrell at one 68? The guys at one 60 coming up being down the line, maybe a Charlotte fight at one 68 is a good one. That's certainly marketable between those two guys. That could be interesting in 2024. But I think he's going to have to decide, does he want to go that route, one that could take a couple of years before he has a chance to fight in a meaningful high level world title fight once again. So yeah, I'm curious to see what I think he's probably done for the rest of the year, frankly. I think he'll probably take the rest of the year off and go into 2024 with maybe some options of about how he's going to rebuild. All right, I want to ask you about the other card this weekend. Headlined by José Ramírez. He takes out Richard Comey in the 11th round of that fight. I want to say first Keith, I want to give our pal Mark kriegel over at ESPN some credit for some of the stuff he did during fight week. Sometimes on broadcasts, you get a lot of kind of propaganda with what comes out. Kriegel went at José Ramírez pretty good during that fight week about him not taking the fight against Regis program. I tried to pin him down on his reasons for taking this low level fight against Richard Comey and not jumping on opportunities to fight for world title in his next time out. So credit to Mark kriegel for asking those types of questions on a ESPN telecast. That's where you don't often get those types of interviews. But Ramirez comes back, kind of a predictable outcome, you know, Comey's long since shot. Lopez probably got the best of him. It took the rest of him and whatever, you know, Ramirez took out was probably the last of former world title holder, Richard Comey. But do you see Ramirez now going into another big fight? Whether it is against pro gray or the winner of teofimo against Josh Taylor. Are those the options for him in the second half of the year? Yeah, I think ideally what he would like to do, Chris is fight the winner of the tailor Lopez fight because of course his only loss is to Josh Taylor. It was a competitive fight he lost, but I got knocked down twice in the fight, but it was a competitive fight. So I think he's going to want to rematch with Taylor if Taylor beats two fema Lopez. I think that fight could go either way. And of course, if TF fema Lopez wins, it's an in-house fight for top rank that would be very interesting to the public, I think. So that's what I think he's going to try to do next. I understand why Mark went after him because some of the rationale for not taking the pro gray fight. Doesn't sit well with people because if he wanted the fight, he could have taken it. Now I understand what he's saying about he had a wedding planned and all that kind of I understand that. And what he told me it was a few months ago when I told you he said, look, boxing has been put first in my life, my whole life basically. And my wife raises our kids and I'm a way for training camp and everything and I promised her we were going to get married on this date with no if sands or butts about it and that's what I stuck to. I put my wife and my family first this time and the business second. Boxing fans don't want to hear that, but that's the way José Ramírez felt that he certainly entitled to feel that way and to put his family first. That said, it does sound like he did not want to fight outreach program. And

Coming up next