A new story from SI Boxing with Chris Mannix
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
I know we bought a shirt as soon as it came out because he has been clamoring for that fight nearly as often as I have. Is that right Keith? Do you have your shirt on back order right now? Look, if I can't get a free one, I give up, you know? That's true. You do deserve free one. At this point. All right, lots to get into on this episode. I want to talk about David Bennett's against Caleb Plant. What's next for Benavidez? José Ramírez was back in action as well. And Anthony Joshua is going to make an anticipated return this weekend in the heavyweight division over in the UK against Jermaine Franklin. The first Keith, you were ringside for Benavidez versus plant in Las Vegas, a excellent fight. An excellent overall card, but an excellent fight between two top guys 868 pound division. Caleb Plant looked pretty good early on using his jab using his movement using the biggest ring I've ever seen. But Benavidez eventually tracked him down and punished him in the second half of the fight, securing for him what was a wide decision win. So give your impressions on what you saw between Benavidez and plant. Well, first things first, Chris ringside is probably a stretch at this point. We were in the building. But it was a very good fight. You know, it was a coming out party of sorts for David Benavidez and I think the fight played out the way that most people anticipated. Plant was going to get off to a strong start. You're going to use his legs, use his jabby counterpunched well. He was very effective in the first 5 rounds. In fact, Tim cheatum, who is a judge who tends to favor a boxers, had about 5 rounds to zero going into the 6th round. It was closer on the other two cards, but plant was very effective in those first 5 rounds. But as I think most people expected, Chris, I'm sure you did as well. Benavidez is pressure just wore him down. You know, he's a great body puncher. He throws a lot of punch because he never stops coming forward. He's got a great chin, and he just wore Caleb Plant out. And I think that's what a lot of people anticipate it happening. I thought he would stop them and, you know, the tenth, 11th, 12th rounds, and that didn't happen. But otherwise the fight pretty much unfolded as I anticipated it and I've been wrong a million times too, but in this case, I think it pretty much played out the way most people saw it playing out. So it was a great win for David Benavidez. It was a really good event to Chris and that the announced attendance was 13,800 and something. They called it a sellout. I don't even want to get into that. The building holds 16,000 500 or so. You sell 16,500 tickets. It's a sellout. It's not the sell out just because you put that. If you put 8 tickets on sale and you sell a ticket, you can't call it a sellout. But I don't know. I don't want to rain on what was a good event, but they did a very good gate. They did between three and $4 million in ticket sales, which is a very healthy number, considering that Benavidez had not been an event of this magnitude. I think it speaks to how people are responding to him. And you know, again, the undercard was solid. I mean, the undercard was full of pretty good, evenly matched fights. On paper, I should say. And two of them certainly played out that way. So the event overall was good and it was, again, I believe in a way of coming out party for David Benavidez. Yeah, you use the phrase went as expected. And I would agree with that because it felt like that fight early on was going to be one that at the very least Caleb Plant had a lot of success in because he is a pretty sharp boxer. He has a decent jab. And because of the size of that ring, 22 by 22, he had a lot of real estate to work with. So it was set up for Caleb Plant to do well in the early stages of that fight. The question was, when would Benavidez be able to track him down and how much damage could he do over the final X number of rounds of the fight? He really was maybe the 6th round where he started to wear down David wear down Caleb plants and take control of that fight force plan to do an awful lot of holding just a lot of holding in the second half of that fight. But eventually was able to land, you know, just a lot of power punch. I forget what the numbers were over the final 6 rounds, but it was like one 70 of 45 or something like that in terms of punches landed in the final 6 rounds of the fight. So it was dominated by David Benavidez. I did think it was going to go to a decision too. I don't know if you predicted that going in, but I thought that I thought it would go to a decision. Because I told you bragging about your betting. Yeah, well, I've had some good, I've had some good runs here, Keith, just to be clear, I mean, I had Mercedes by decision a couple of weeks ago. Bam, hit on that one. I have David Benavidez. That was ballsy. I'll give you that one. Yes. I also took Jose Ramirez plus 200 by knockout against Richard Comey. That was another one there too. So you're talking to a guy on a heater here right now. Just to be clear about that. But my point was the reason I picked Benavidez by decision was because he has a lot of knockout, but the knockouts have come against like, you know, B and C level guys. Like, who's the best guy he knocked out? Anthony Darrell, and he stopped him on a cut. He's got some romaine gulo. He's got some, some lower level guys. I thought Caleb Plant would do enough to survive to the end of the fight. Got an assist, though, from Kenny Bayless. You were watching that fight ringside, didn't look to me from TV that Kenny Bayless was doing David Benavidez any favors. He was allowing Caleb Plant to hold on as often as you'd like without warning. And then had some kind of weird warnings that David Benavidez as well. I didn't, I mean, it wasn't the most, it wasn't the worst refereeing performance I've seen, but certainly not one canny bail this is gonna put on the highlight reel down the line. Yeah, Chris, it's interesting because after the fight, David Benavidez for all intents and purposes said that Kenny Bayless stopped him from knocking Caleb planet out. He didn't really give him the opportunity to do that because he allowed so much holding. I don't really blame plant for holding and because he was he was trying everything he could to not get knocked out because he was getting worn down. He was cut. He was beat up to the body and he was ready to go. So he was doing everything he could to survive. I don't blame him for that. But it's incumbent upon Kenny Bayless or any other referee to not allow that. And it looks from the beginning of the fight, Chris, as you alluded to, it almost looked to me in the first few rounds like Kenny Bayless was dying to take a point and David Benavidez. He was warning him excessively. He never warned Caleb Plant for holding as far as I could tell. And he held to the point where you certainly could argue he could have taken a point away, didn't turn out to matter two of the judges I thought got it right. I thought it was a 9 three 8 four type of fight because plants started off so well. He did win, I