By Cassandra Cousineau
LVSportsBiz.com
Tennessee native and Las Vegas-based boxer Caleb Plant should’ve been counted out a long time ago. The list of setbacks for the 27-year-old is extensive and dotted with enough challenging life lessons to indelibly change a man – and, indeed, they have.
Plant’s early life was shadowed by poverty. And most recently, the deaths of both his mother and young daughter have given him a perspective that most would wish they never had. Still, he finds himself defending a world championship on the biggest stage in boxing this weekend at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Plant, (18-0, 10 knockouts) will battle fellow undefeated boxer Mike Lee (21-0, 11 knockouts), as the co-featured event at the MGM Grand on Saturday’s high-profile Manny Pacquaio-Keith Thurman fight card. His journey has been both his worst nightmare and greatest reward.
Growing up in the rural Tennessee town of Ashland, Plant’s first crib was a dresser drawer. The town’s population of just under 5,000 residents pales in comparison to the capacity of 16,800 boxing fans capable of packing the Grand Garden Arena on fight night.
“Boxing has always been like a sanctuary for me. It’s been a place that I could go and be somebody,” Plant said during a recent media workout. “Once I got back out of those doors I had to go back to being that kid that nobody wanted to be. And so that just kind of became like addicting. it became like an addiction for me to want to be there, want to be in the gym, not go home and just be a gym rat.”
Before the young champion ever wore the shiny belt he’ll defend in Las Vegas, he had to face the deep, dark pain of burying a child.
In 2015, Plant and his child’s mother made the decision to remove life support from their 19-month-old daughter, Alia. She was born with brain damage that caused her to have up to 200 seizures a day. The infant didn’t have any motor skills and was on life support five different times before eventually succumbing.
Plant promised Alia he would win a world title and deliver it to her grave — a vow he would fulfill just before tragedy would reappear in his life.
The recently crowned IBF titlist began kickboxing at the age of nine before turning his full attention to boxing. His father, Richie, worked a handful of overnight jobs and managed to put together enough money to find Caleb what has been referred to as a gym. The “gym” was actually a small space where he had to tape off a makeshift ring and one heavy bag for him to train on. When he was able to spar, people would line up against a wall and hold hands so the boxers wouldn’t fall against the bricks.
The grit he learned in the gym prepared him for an even greater fight at home. When he was a teenager he sold drugs for his mother while at the same time wishing she would get clean and sober. That never happened.
Plant graduated from prospect status in 2018 and then suffered a broken hand in training just before he was due to face Jose Uzcategui for the super middleweight title. He recovered and won his first world championship, defeating Uzcategui Jan. 13. While battered and bandaged in the dressing room, he also proposed to his then- girlfriend Jordan Hardy, a FOX Sports boxing commentator. The two will be married in Tennessee Oct. 5. That celebration didn’t last for long.
Just three months after achieving a major career goal, Beth Plant, Caleb Plant’s 51-year-old mother, was being transported by ambulance when something went horribly wrong. She reportedly became combative. And when police arrived, she brandished a knife in the direction of the officer who subsequently shot and killed her after she failed to drop her weapon.
Plant is an intense fighter who rarely cracks a smile when speaking about what he does for a living.
“Boxing is life or death for me. I do not look at this as just a sport, this is my livelihood,” he said. “If I don’t win, I don’t get to go home, because I’m not going to have a home.”
Training for a fight is quite possibly a respite for the man they call, “Sweethands.” He’s looking to put on a show Saturday. “I still feel like the B’side because I feel like I’m the one who isn’t supposed to be here. If you look at my life, I still have the underdog mentality and that type of work ethic,” Plant told LVSportsBiz.com in a recent interview.
“Winning a world title wasn’t’ the goal, it was one goal. The goal is to be the first undisputed super middle weight champion of the world. Right now, first things first, defend my title in spectacular fashion.”
He’ll still carry a bit of his past into the present when he meets Lee in the 168-pound tilt. Instead of “Sweethands” across the waistband of Plant’s trunks on fight night, the word Bubba will be stitched in remembrance of the nickname his mother gave him.
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