By: Hans Themistode
With his legal issues reportedly behind him, Canelo Alvarez could be on the verge of entering the ring after sitting idly by for an entire year.
According to multiple reports, Alvarez is eyeing a showdown with IBF super middleweight champion Caleb Plant in mid-December. Nothing is official as of yet, but a deal could be imminent.
For Alvarez, 2020 has been a trying year. After unifying titles in his victory against former middleweight belt holder Daniel Jacobs in May of 2019, Alvarez quickly followed it up with an 11th round knockout win over Sergey Kovalev. The win netted the Mexican product a world title in his fourth weight class having moved up to light heavyweight.
Shortly, after stopping Kovalev in their contest, Alvarez (53-1-2, 36 KOs) wasted little time in vacating his newly won title and elected to campaign in the super middleweight division. The options seemed endless for his next contest. However, a public feud with streaming company DAZN and Golden Boy Promotions, paired with a worldwide pandemic, and Alvarez was left sequestered on the sidelines.
With that being said, things appear to be looking up for the Mexican superstar. Roughly two months ago in September, Alvarez sued both parties for their lack of getting him a fight and for a breach of contract. Alvarez was guaranteed north of 30 million per fight with his then record setting 11 fight 365 million dollar deal.
Yet, with DAZN not willing to pay Alvarez fully what he believed was owed to him, along with their insistence in him facing opponents of their choosing, he filed suit against everyone involved. No solution was reported on the case but with Alvarez’s trainer in Eddy Reynoso releasing a statement that his fighter is in fact a free agent and no longer legally bound to either DAZN or Golden Boy Promotions, everything else regarding the case seems to have fallen in his favor.
As for his interest in Plant (20-0, 12 KOs), Alvarez has long viewed a matchup between them as an intriguing one. Plant, 28, won the IBF super middleweight title with an upset win over Jose Uzcategui in 2019. Since then, he has gone on to defend his title twice. The first came against Mike Lee via third round stoppage at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. His second defense took place earlier this year at the expense of Vincent Feigenbutz.
Plant has always thrown his name into the mix in terms of a possible showdown with Alvarez. Still, the Nashville, Tennessee native believed his chances were slim.
At the moment, there are still details to be worked out, but with Reynoso revealing on ESPN Deportes that he has kept Alvarez in the gym with the hopes of landing him a marquee fight, it appears that Alvarez will, in fact, enter the ring before the year comes to a close.
