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In what wound up a total and complete mismatch, which was expected by many if not most, Caleb Plant retained his IBF super middleweight title with a third round stoppage win over Mike Lee.
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Plant (19-0, 11 KO) had absolutely no trouble with the hopelessly overmatched Lee (21-1, 11 KO), a marketing creation from years ago who had never faced anyone you could even consider a fringe contender, and was also coming down from 175 to 168 for this fight.
Lee, who is most famous for having graduated from Notre Dame and getting a Top Rank-orchestrated spot in a Subway commercial many years back, was sorely out of his depth with the defending titleholder. Lee was game and put on a brave face, but he could barely land a punch on Plant, who landed pretty much at will.
Plant dropped Lee in the opening round, and then put him on the canvas three more times in the third round before referee Robert Byrd had seen enough. Lee protested the stoppage — and understandably so, he was still trying his best — but it was the right call by Byrd. There was nothing competitive about this fight.
“I stuck to my word,” Plant said after the fight. “I take my hat off to Mike for getting in here, because it takes a champion to get in the ring, but it’s ‘and still,’ just like I said, baby.”
Plant said he’s open to unifying with the winner of the Sept. 28 fight between WBC super middleweight titleholder Anthony Dirrell and David Benavidez.
“We can definitely unify. The winner of (Dirrell-Benavidez), I ain’t hard to get a hold of, come see me. You know my adviser,” Plant said.