Billy Joe Saunders Explains What Caleb Plant Needs To Do To Beat Canelo Alvarez

Billy Joe Saunders believes Caleb Plant is capable of beating Canelo Alvarez.

Plant faces Alvarez in a super middleweight title unification clash this Saturday night in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It is a highly-anticipated affair not only because the winner will completely unify the 168-pound division, but because of the very bad blood between Plant and Alvarez.

That said, Alvarez remains a huge favorite not only with oddsmakers, but the combat sports world in general.

Saunders — who suffered a TKO defeat to Alvarez back in May — doesn’t feel Alvarez is invincible though. He even believes Plant is capable of giving him a good fight.

“I don’t think he’s the invincible man,” Saunders told talkSPORT. “I think that Plant’s got a very good boxing brain, he just needs to maintain his distance.

“Make sure you’re out of distance, don’t just think you’re out of distance because that’s the difference when you’re in with world level and elite [level]. He’s gotta make sure to be on his game all the way, I think he’s gonna give Canelo a good fight.”

As for what Plant needed to do specifically, Saunders offered some pointers:

“I think not to switch off for a single second because sometimes you can feel comfortable in there,” Saunders explained. “Even with it being Canelo, sometimes you can feel very comfortable. I think that’s the time where you’ve gotta realise you’re in there with an elite fighter, not a world class fighter and Canelo is an elite fighter. But Plant’s got all the tools to cause him problems…

“He’s obviously gotta keep it at long distance. Keep it very busy for the first six rounds and finish strong. He’s gotta certainly maintain that jab. Being orthodox – I was southpaw and that causes more problems – so he’s open to more counters obviously than what I would’ve been. You’ve gotta maintain your range at safe distance and box nice, and hopefully the judges score the true boxing scorecards, rather than the name of Canelo.”

That last point being why Saunders is still ultimately going with Alvarez to come out on top.

“I’m gonna go with Canelo on points because of the reason of being Canelo,” he added. “I know how hard it is to get a decision and what tricks they might play leading up.

“He can’t let any of that get to him, completely brush it over his shoulder and hopefully let his boxing do the talking.”