Saturday night at the Silverdome in Pontiac Michigan, two of the best light welterweights in boxing met up for an early “fight of the year”. WBO champion Tim Bradley, 26-0 (11) and WBC champion Devon Alexander, 21-0 (13) stepped into the ring to decide who is the best and who will possibly be taking on Amir Khan later in 2011.
Hyped as a fight between speed and boxing ability, Tim Bradley took command early, trying to move around to nullify Alexanders speed. During round one it was more of a “feeling out” round, but Bradley landed some good shots at the end of the round. Alexander seemed to rebound in the second, winning the round closely by employing his speed to cut off his opponent. Bradley came out in third round and quickly too charge by out boxing Alexander, but towards the middle of the round the two fighters clashed heads which opened up a cut over the right eye of Alexander. The referee quickly alerted the ringside that the cut was caused by an unintentional head butt, which would play a big part in the end.
Round four saw Alexander coming back and it looked like he would start to use his speed to take over the fight. That wasn’t to happen as Bradley took over the next 3 rounds, hitting Alexander with hard, but not real powerful punches. The punches, had a power puncher landed them, would have dropped Alexander, but it just seemed to bother Alexander, not hurt him. The cut over Alexander’s right eye kept expanding during the fight as the ringside physician kept a close eye. Rounds eight and nine were close, but won by Bradley. Two more head butts in round eight started to frustrate Alexander and looked like it may have started a cut in the outer corner of his eye.
The championship rounds started off promising as both men rushed to the center of the ring and looked energetic. Bradley was wisely still boxing Alexander, but as both men tried to land a big punch simultaneously, their heads came together and clashed, opening a cut on the left side of Bradley’s head. Alexander reacted by jumping away and screaming. He ran towards the corner as the referee call for time and the ringside physician. The doctor tried to examine Alexander and his eyes, but Alexander stated that he could not open his eyes due to the stinging in his eyes and in the cut. The doctor then alerted the referee that the fight would be halted. Because the cut that was bothering Alexander was brought on by the earlier ruled unintentional clash of heads, the ref ruled that it would be a technical decision, and go to the scorecards. In the end, the judges scored the fight 97-93, 96-95, 98-93 in favor of the new WBC/WBO light welterweight champion, Timothy “Desert Storm” Bradley. This writer had the score of 97-93 for Bradley.
No word whether either sanctioning body has ordered a rematch, but a dejected Devon Alexander, tasting his first professional defeat, stated there would be a rematch. I certainly would love to see that rematch and then the winner taking on Amir Khan in late 2011.
Bob Carroll
www.convictedartist.com
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