Paulie Malignaggi says Caleb Plant needs to “assess” whether he has the hunger to continue his career after his loss to Armando Resendiz last Saturday night in Las Vegas.
Plant’s Hunger Questioned
The WBA interim super middleweight champion Plant (23-3, 14 KOs) lost a 12-round split decision to Resendiz (26-2, 11 KOs). Caleb’s loss potentially derailed his plans to fight Jermall Charlo next on PPV.
Malingaggi says he doesn’t know if Plant has the hunger to continue fighting, because he’s already made good money and has a family. He questions whether Caleb is willing to put in the effort against hungry fighters like Resendiz.
He looked hungry to me, but he was facing a guy with a chin, power, and an inside game. Plant couldn’t hold Resendiz off on the outside, and he was getting beaten up on the inside.
“I don’t know what Caleb Plant does. He didn’t look hungry to me, but he obviously still had all his faculties. If he’s not hungry anymore, he’s got to assess that himself. He didn’t look hungry to me tonight,” said Paulie Malignaggi on his channel about Caleb Plant after his loss to Armando Resendiz last Saturday.
‘Sweethands’ Plant looked the same as usual, but he was getting hit with a lot of hard shots from a younger fighter who was putting it on him. The big shots that Plant landed that had given older, lesser fighters like Anthony Dirrell and Trevor McCumby problems did not affect Resendiz.
Plant: “Fighting Not To Lose”
“Fighting not to lose. His intent was to beat Resendiz and get the Jermall Charlo fight. You’re looking to hit them enough to keep them off you,” said Malignaggi on what went wrong for Plant. “Resendiz wasn’t cooperating. So, now you’ve got to fight these guys.”
Plant was fighting like he’d always done; his talent wasn’t sufficient to beat this level of a fighter. If you go back and watch Plant’s earlier fights against Jose Uzcategui, Mike Lee, Caleb Truax, and Vincent Feigenbutz, he looked the same against them as he did in the Resendiz fight.
The difference was that Resendiz was superior to those fighters in terms of his pressure, inside game, and punch resistance. If Plant had fought Resendiz earlier in his career, he’d have lost to him just like he did last Saturday night. In other words, Plant was never as good as boxing fans thought.
“As the fight wore on, Plant didn’t have the fight in him because now, you have to do what you did in the [Trevor] McCumby fight all over again, and you have to have the fight inside you. There’s only so many times where you’re going to summon that out of you in your career, especially when it gets late and you’ve made good money. It’s much tougher to bring that dog out of you, especially consistently at that age with all those other variables I just mentioned.
Charlo-Resendiz Fight Discussed
“Resendiz has two big wins. Caleb Plant wasn’t as shot as Jarrett Hurd was. Now, all of a sudden, you don’t have Charlo-Caleb Plant now, but do you have Charlo and Resendiz?” said Paulie.
As long as Jermall’s promoters are okay with his next fight being on regular PBC on Prime Video, Resendiz would be a good idea. However, Charlo’s management will likely want him to be on PPV for his next fight. Now that Plant has lost, it would be a foolish idea to proceed with the original plan for a Plant-Charlo fight.
Charlo has been out of the game for too many years to sell on pay-per-view. Even if Plant had won last Saturday, a fight between him and Charlo wouldn’t have done big numbers on pay-per-view. There aren’t enough older fans who would want to pay $75 to watch those two.
“Do we make Charlo-Resendiz because we still don’t know how much Charlo has left,” said Paulie. “The resurgence continues. I think Resendiz is a good logical step. It’s not a super fight and wouldn’t be sold to you like a super fight like Charlo and Plant was. But I didn’t think Charlo and Plant were going to be a super fight anyway.”
PBC would have to believe that Charlo would come out victorious for them to give him the green light to face Recendiz. Based on his performance against LaManna, I wouldn’t do it if I were with PBC.
Charlo was getting hit too often by LaManna for him to be put in with a guy like Resendiz. Those shots that Resendiz was hitting Plant with on the inside would give Jermall a lot of problems. He’s been out of the game for too many years, and he’s too old to be getting hit by a 26-year-old Resendiz.
“But this fight makes sense in the steps to bring back Jermall Charlo. If he beats Resendiz, it’s actually good win now because Resendiz is coming off a win over Plant and has a win over [Jarrett] Hurd. He has a pretty decent resume for Charlo to get a win over a guy like that,” said Paulie.
It would be a good win for Jermall if he beat Resendiz, and it would potentially lead to a fight against Edgar Berlanga, Diego Pacheco, or Christian Mbilli. It’s doubtful that Canelo would be eager to fight Charlo. He would only take a fight with Charlo if Turki Alalshikh offered him a bunch of money. He’s not taking risks unless he’s paid huge money. It would have to be initiated by Turki.
PBC’s Charlo Comeback Concerns
“But if Resendiz beats Charlo, he adds his name to his resume. Either way, the winner can be set up nicely in the 168-lb division,” said Malignaggi.
It doesn’t seem realistic that Charlo’s handlers will let him tangle with Resendiz after last Saturday’s performances. Jermall didn’t shine enough against Thomas LaManna to risk putting him in with Resendiz, and have him land the kinds of shots he was hitting Plant with.
We saw what a very average-looking Juan Macias Montiel did to Jermall four years ago in 2021. That was against a much better version of Charlo than the one we saw last Saturday night against LaManna. Charlo looked like he was only 50% of what he’d been against Montiel, but fortunately for him, he was facing a journeyman, not someone like Resendiz.
Last Updated on 06/02/2025
