By Lem Satterfield

Jose Uzcategui was a 15-years-old competing on the road as an amateur boxer when he received the tragic news regarding his infant daughter.

“It happened [13] years ago. I was in concentration because I was about to compete with the national team of Venezuela, about 36 hours away from my hometown when I was told about my baby’s passing,” said Uzcategui, 28, through translation by Ricardo Jiminez.

“She was just three months old, and I was just told that she had passed away. They said it was crib death. She was my first-born, and that was very hurtful and difficult to get over. I never talk about it, but it is something that I carry with me in my heart.”

An IBF champion 168-pound champion, Uzcategui (28-2, 23 KOs) will take that motivation into Sunday’s initial and mandatory defense against Caleb “Sweethands” Plant (17-0, 10 KOs) at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on FOX (8 p.m. PT/ 5 p.m. PT).

“My motivation is my family,” said Uzcategui, now the father of six comprised of a 12-year-old son being the eldest and a 10-month old daughter the youngest of five girls. “I get up every morning to train and I’m away from my family, which is difficult. But on Sunday, I can show that all the work paid off and I’m the best.”

The 26-year-old Plant is similarly incentivized by the death of his child: He was 5-0 with four knockouts when he was rocked the passing of his 19-month-old daughter, Alia, from a rare medical condition on Jan. 29, 2015.

"For those who know me and know my story, they know I've been through things that break people," said Plant, who grew up in impoverished Ashland City, Tennessee.

"I've taken many defeats throughout my life, but never once have I been defeated. I always come out the other side. Sunday, January 13, I'm going to come out the other side with that belt.



But the duo also shares a visceral dislike for one other, with Uzcategui to treat Plant to “the beating of his life,” and Plant aiming to make the champion pay with mouthfuls of balled up metacarpus comprised of jabs, left hooks and uppercuts.

“Jose’s got a bully mentality,” said Plant, during an earlier interview with BoxingScene.com. “As long as people are scared of him, Jose feeds off of that. But everybody knows when you stand up to a bully, they don’t like it."

A recent episode on FOX’s “PBC Face to Face: Jose Uzcategui versus Caleb Plant” revealed the origin of Uzcategui’s nickname,

“Bolivita.” He earned it from his father, who paid an 8-year-old Uzcategui one Bolivar, the basic unit of money in Venezuela, to outbox his classmates.

“My Dad liked to make me fight my friends in my neighborhood. He told me ‘I’ll give you a Bolivar if you fight.’ So he called me ‘Bolivita,’” said Uzcategui during the episode.

“I think I have the ability to be one of the best fighters in history. I know that I have the ability to do that, and I know that by winning I’m going to get what I want to be.”