The 29-year-old American is the latest in a long line of hitherto undefeated challengers attempting to dislodge the carrot-topped Mexican Saul ‘Canelo’ Álvarez from his perch as the world’s supreme fighter.

Plant’s 21-0 record suggests he is quick on the draw, but he needs to be some hotshot to out-gun Álvarez in what looks like that rarity in boxing - a genuine grudge match, with all four versions of the gold super-middleweight titles at stake, including one - the IBF - currently held by the homegrown Plant. 

The others are all the property of Canelo.

The statistics suggest it could be some fight, and the Vegas oddsmakers do not seem in a generous mood, offering 12-1 against Plant.

Unlike some of his illustrious former compatriots, Canelo Álvarez is no Mexican jumping bean. Rated by the majority as the world’s leading fighter, he cuts a deeply impressive figure; smartly booted and suited, looking the very essence of a young business executive, and although not responding fluent in English, a language he clearly understands but says he is not yet confident of speaking, he comes across as the epitome of quiet dignity and good manners. 

And unlike some champions we could name, neither does he indulge in trash-talking.

"They tell me he fights like a Mexican," said Canelo of Plant, who answers to the ring soubriquet of Sweethands.

"If that’s so it should make for a great fight.

"When I see him face to face it makes me want the fight tomorrow."

They certainly look a pair well matched in a bout that will be decided not by physical stature but pure ringcraft, punching power, the most intelligent gameplan and, above all, cojones.

At 31, Álvarez has already fought Floyd Mayweather, the only defeat of his career which started when he was 15 years old. He has become one of Mexico’s most celebrated sporting stars. The youngest of six fighting brothers, he started boxing at 13 after watching sibling Rigoberto’s debut as a professional. 

In 2004, he won the silver medal at the Junior Mexican National Championships and became the 2005 Junior Mexican National Boxing Champion. Canelo had an amateur record of 44-2. He turned professional shortly afterwards. The rest, as they say, is history, except that it isn’t. Well, not quite.

Like many boxing aficionados, I would more readily accept Álvarez as the world's outstanding pound-for-pound fighter, if it was not for the fact that his record is scarred by the fact that he is a cheat. Or rather, he was when, twice in 2018, he failed a drugs test after it was revealed he had taken the performing-enhancing clenbuterol, which, he claimed, he had mistakenly ingested when eating contaminated meat.

Yet his action appeared to be conveniently compounded by the boxing’s regulatory bodies authorities, who reduced and backdated his compulsory suspension, which allowed a commercially attractive rematch with Gennady Golovkin to take place. 

However, it is impossible to ignore the sublime skills of Canelo, who seems to have all the finest facets of boxing in his ring repertoire, no doubt employed with his usual brilliance against Plant in a bout to be televised live in the early hours of Sunday on BT Box Office.

Interestingly, eight of Canelo's title fights have been against British opposition, among them the former Olympic silver medallist and former world champion Amir Khan and, more recently, Billy Joe Saunders. All were comprehensively vanquished, although Ricky Hatton‘s elder brother Matthew and Liverpool’s Callum Smith both took him the distance.

Canellos greatness, then, has to be weighed against the doping aberration, especially as clenbuterol has been known to be employed as a masking agent for other drugs.