Caleb Plant and Stephen "Breadman" Edwards are the perfect pair. It isn't because of the chemistry they've built up as a fighter-trainer duo, but more so because of their mindsets.
When a fight is on their schedule, both Plant and Edwards don't like looking ahead, no matter how tenuous their upcoming opponent may seem. Over the past few weeks, they followed that script thoroughly. They were scheduled to take on
Jose Armando Resendiz but knew that a bigger fight and even bigger payday was waiting on the other side.
It wasn’t a coincidence that
Jermall Charlo was featured in the co-main. Charlo was expected to run through Thomas LaManna. Plant, similarly, was supposed to hand out a boxing lesson against former sparring partner Resendiz.
At the Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada this past weekend, Charlo was dominant en route to a
sixth-round stoppage win over LaManna. He went to the locker room, wiped a bit of sweat off his face, got dressed and took a ringside seat for the main event.
Although it was supposed to be a mundane, run-of-the-mill headline attraction, Resendiz gave the fans their money's worth before winning a close but clear 12-round split decision.
Edwards, unsurprisingly, couldn't believe what he was watching. He'll now have the next few months to wrap his head around it while his fighter will also have a decision to make.
Plant's handlers are shrewd operators. They expected their man to win, but also inserted an immediate rematch clause in the initial contract. Plant, when talking in the post-fight press conference,
remained open to the possibility of running it back while expressing an interest in the Charlo clash that had dominated talk in the build-up.
Edwards doesn't get into who Plant will and won't fight, he simply waits for a date, then gets the former IBF world champion. It's been an obvious great pairing but apparently, one that isn't quite ideal. Whether the 32-year-old opts to jump straight into a Resendiz rematch or
fights Charlo later this year, his incredibly meticulous coach wants to change things up.
"I would like to get carte blanche this next camp and just be able to do everything that I want to do from top to bottom," Edwards told several reporters on Saturday night. "I think he can beat Resendiz but I want a camp where I have carte blanche - do everything I want with him in camp and let's just see how it is."
Ostensibly, Edwards has been working with his hands tied behind his back to a certain degree. Their partnership has allowed Plant to grab stoppage victories over Anthony Dirrell
and most recently Trevor McCumby, though something isn't clicking.
He wouldn’t go into details about what he would like to see done differently. But, Edwards did point to one specific thing he would change instantaneously.
"I want to bring in the kind of sparring partners that I want," Edwards continued. "That would be the number one thing."