By: Sean Crose
“What Plant did to him, I would be doing to Plant.” So said former longtime middleweight titlist Demetrius “Boo Boo” Andre after Caleb Plant’s one shot destruction of Anthony Dirrell last Saturday night at Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Center. Tired of hoping big fights will happen at middleweight, the undefeated Rhode Islander is now moving up to Plant’s home division of super middleweight in order to make his mark. “I look forward to get in there with the 168rs,” he said, “all day.”
Truth be told, it’s been hard to follow Andrade’s career without feeling at least some sense of frustration. Supremely talented, the 31-0 fighter has never faced one of the sport’s bigger names. Although some may blame this fact on Andrade himself, there’s little doubt that the top middleweights of recent years have shown little interest in squaring off with the 34 year old in the ring. With that being said, Andrade simply doesn’t fight all that much. Like many notable contemporary ring practitioners, Andrade can only be expected to fight once or twice a year at most. Be that as it may, the man still wants a piece of the action among the sport’s upper echelons.
“I don’t care,” he says when asked which of the bigger names out there he’d like to face. “I’ll beat ‘em all…168, we’re moving on up.” Indeed, Andrade might fare well against Plant, or David Benavidez or Jermall Charlo, three of the bigger names out there in his general weight realm. Whether or not any of those fight would actually get made, however, is another story. It’s hard to tell why certain high profile matches never come to be, but it’s easy to see why Andrade might be a tough out for anyone. The man, simply put, is a ring technician, a highly skilled boxer, who impresses more than delights when he fights.
Such fighters, lest they be named Mayweather, have tended to be easy to avoid. Highlight reel knockouts are ultimately what the public craves, not a showcase on the finer points of the sweet science. This unavoidable fact, along with a sparse amount of ring activity, has not led Andrade to being a fighter too popular to be avoided. It appears, though, that Andrade is determined, or at least hopeful, that his prospects of facing a top competitor will now improve. “Charlo for sure,” he said when the older Charlo brother’s name was mentioned. “We’re here for a reason.” Then again, Charlo hasn’t been fighting too often himself these days.