Edwards: Plant has work cut out for him as Benavidez a really good fighter
Caleb Plant’s trainer talks about what he’s been working on with his fighter ahead of this big super middleweight showdown.
Trainer Stephen ‘Breadman’ Edwards takes some time to chat with Fight Hype about Caleb Plant’s upcoming fight against David Benavidez and touches on the things he’s been working with Plant on as he continues to develop his style. Edwards says he has nothing but respect for Benavidez as a fighter and a high caliber opponent, knowing that they’ll have to be on their Ps and Qs. Check out some excerpts of what Breadman had to say below.
Edwards on the weaknesses he sees in David Benavidez
“Every fighter has flaws or tendencies, one or the other, so he’s a tremendous fighter. I’m not gonna sit up here and pick him apart because anybody can be picked apart. You could look at tape of Roy Jones or Sugar Ray Leonard or Sugar Ray Robinson and say ‘oh, well he do this or he do that.’ It’s your job to exploit it. So it’s not so much what he does wrong, Caleb has to exploit some of the tendencies that he has. But I’m not gonna pick the guy apart, he’s 26-0 for a reason. The guy can fight. He’s real, real good.”
On what he has Plant working on for the Dirrell fight
“A lot of times Kronk fighters try to line the guy up for the right hand. So we was making sure we that Caleb was off-line for the right hand. Another thing we worked on is keeping our emotions in check because I know it was bad blood going into the fight — fight focused, don’t fight mad. Another thing we worked on is changing the tempo of our attack.”
On Plant sitting down on his punches more and punching on the move less
“He was doing both. He’s still a boxer. We’re not trying to turn him into no knockout puncher. He’s just a guy that happens to be able to punch who people say can’t punch. So I just let people say what they want. All punches hurt...anybody can hurt anybody. It’s about hitting guys in vulnerable spots with shots that they don’t see. So he’s still a boxer, and believe it or not, punching on the move is not a bad thing.
“I mean, being able to punch on the move means the person got to defend you while he’s tracking you down. Do you know how hard that is, while you’re moving towards somebody or moving away from them and they punching you?...[Plant] is just evolving as a fighter. But there’s nothing wrong with punching on the move.”
On his confidence in Plant being able to knockout Benavidez
“I’m confident Caleb can knock anybody out if he hit ‘em clean, hit ‘em the right way. In this fight, obviously, you don’t look for something like that because if you look for it, you don’t find it. In this fight it’s just a guy that I’m looking to — we’re just looking to win the fight. And however way the win comes, it comes. If Benavidez comes in a certain kind of way, he can get clipped.
“But, listen, he can clip Caleb. It’s a fight. I see them saying disrespectful stuff about Caleb. I don’t look at Benavidez like that. I look at Benavidez as a great fighter. I total healthy respect for him, I think he’s helluva fighter and I know we got our work cut out for us.”