The Bolivian and the IBF Super Middleweight world champion Jose Uzcategui and the unbeaten Super Middleweight contender Caleb Plant faced off as scheduled on a rare Sunday fight night on the 13th of January, 2019 at the Microsoft Center, Los Angeles covered by FOX SPORTS and PBC.
Uzcategui (28-3-0, 23KO) set himself up for a second defence of the strap with a unanimous decision fight over 10 rounds against Ezequiel Osvaldo Maderna (26-4-0, 16KO) in September last year to retain his title. Caleb Plant (18-0-0, 10KO) on the other hand earned a mandatory challenge for the IBF Super Middleweight title over Rogelio Medina (38-9-0, 32KO) in twelfth rounds.
Caleb Plant who was predicted to battle with ring rust shocked Jose Uzcategui and the boxing fans at the Microsoft Center with a spectacular performance on the night. Plant started on a good note and planted a straight right counter punch in the chest of Uzcategui, dropped him in the second round after an aggressive first round. Uzcategui maintained a consistent chase on Plant but with fewer and lazy punches.
Again Plant dropped Uzcategui in the fourth round in an exchange with Plant landing a bad left hook sending Uzcategui to the canvas.
Plant dominated the fight through to round eight with quick feet, jabs, combination of punches and occasionally go for the pound for pound exchanges. At this point the champion Uzcategui knew he was going in for a long night.
Uzcategui came up strongly in the middle rounds and landed an effective straight right on the chin of Plant in the ninth round. It got Plant dazed and quickly clinched Uzcategui for some respite. Uzcategui was better in the final rounds but Plant held his own, protected himself after a cut on the lower right eye to maintain the lead he has taken.
It was just too late to come back into the game for Uzcategui as the fight comes landing end in the twelfth round.
At last the final compuBox stats had Plant landing 217 of 707 total punches (30.7%) with Uzcategui landing 157 of 547 (28.8%). Plant took a unanimous decision win of official scores of 116-110, 116-110 and 115-111 to win the IBF Super Middleweight world strap.