By: Sean Crose
IBF super middleweight champion Caleb Plant performed well, as expected, Saturday night in front of a hometown crowd in Nashville, Tennessee as he dominated a way-over-his-head Vincent Feigenbutz of Germany for nine plus rounds.
In truth, the 31-2 Feigenbutz was never truly in the fight, for the taller, much sharper 20-0 Plant completely overwhelmed him with fast, crisp, hard punching. Plant also employed excellent defense and maintained range throughout the one sided battle. Feigenbutz was game, but the fight never changed course throughout it’s duration. Plant fired stinging shots and effectively slipped or blocked most of his opponent’s punches.
Taking mercy on the outclassed challenger, referee Malik Waleed mercifully stopped things in the tenth in order to keep Feigenbutz from receiving further punishment.
The question now is who will Plant face from here? Confident and extremely talented, the Tennessean shares belts at super middleweight with other undefeated, blue chip names such as David Benevidez and Callum Smith. Plant went so far as to call Benevidez out after the fight. “Everybody knows,” he said, “I want that unification fight with David Benavidez,” In an era where politics rules supreme in boxing, a Plant-Benavidez match might not be too difficult to make, as both men fight under Al Haymon’s PBC banner.
Although Plant was without doubt the featured attraction Saturday night at Bridgeville Arena, the most thrilling fight on the Fox aired card was the scheduled 10 round welterweight battle between the 17-3 Bryant Perella and the 26-3-2 Abel Ramos. Perella was cruising along on his way to a win when, in the tenth and final round, Ramos sent him to the mat twice. Perella got up both times, but referee Jack Reiss stopped the bout when Perella didn’t respond to his instructions to step forward. There were mere seconds left in the bout, making the whole affair reminiscent of 1990’s still controversial Julio Caesar Chavez-Meldrick Taylor fight, where referee Richard Steele stopped the bout with seconds to go, giving Chavez a highly controversial win.
Saturday’s card also saw the 32-3 Diego Magdaleno face the 13-2 Austin Dulay in a scheduled 10 round lightweight affair. It was a grueling fight, but Magdaleno used a thudding body attack to earn himself a comfortable unanimous decision win. Although Dulay was a product of Nashville, his performance couldn’t earn him a victory in front of his hometown crowd, even though referee Jack Reiss had taken a point from Magdaleno for hitting low.