Caleb Plant is confident that he will see Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez in a bout for the undisputed super middleweight championship when all is said and done.

The unbeaten IBF titlist is also confident that Alvarez should see a much stiffer challenge in his May 8 WBA/WBC/WBO title unification showdown with England’s Billy Joe Saunders (30-0, 14KOs) than was the case in his mandatory title defense over the weekend.

“I think Canelo will get past Billy Joe,” Plant told BoxingScene.com. “But I do think that Billy Joe has some attributes, mentally he’s not going to lay down—at least not right off the bat.”

Alvarez was able to breeze past his latest challenger, stopping Istanbul’s Avni Yildirim (21-3, 12KOs) after three lopsided rounds this past Saturday at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Guadalajara’s Alvarez (55-1-2, 37KOs) made the first defense of his unified WBA/WBC super middleweight title reign with the win, which came just ten weeks after winning the belts in a 12-round shutout of unbeaten Callum Smith last December in San Antonio.

Dating back to his 3rd round knockout of Rocky Fielding in Dec. 2018, Alvarez has yet to see even a competitive round of boxing action in three super middleweight fights.

That figures to change—at least on paper—come May 8, when Alvarez moves one step closer towards his goal of becoming undisputed super middleweight champion.

“We’ll see what happens,” notes Plant (21-0, 12KOs), who is 4-0 in title fights dating back to his Jan. 2019 win over Jose Uzcategui to claim the IBF strap. “Billy Joe should give him (some looks) that Canelo hasn’t yet seen. It’s interesting. We just have to see what happens between now and then, and then what happens in the fight as well.”

Plant is waiting in the wings, having rested up from his 12-round shutout of former titlist Caleb Truax in their Jan. 30th Fox headliner in Los Angeles. An undisputed championship showdown with Alvarez is all but inevitable, providing the Mexican icon gets past Saunders in what will mark his third fight in a span of just 20 weeks.

“I’ve been saying that I’m looking to become undisputed,” insists Plant. “I’ve been saying that I wanted the Canelo fight. Hopefully we can get in there soon and make it happen. The stars are now aligned for me to do what I’ve always set out to do as a kid, which is to become undisputed champion.”

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox