ST. CHARLES, Mo. ? Devon Alexander entered the ring Saturday night wearing a white T-shirt that read ?Redemption,? a clear nod to his January technical decision loss against Tim Bradley. Winning a controversial split decision over Lucas Matthysse may not have redeemed him in the eyes of the media but it went a long ways toward winning back the more than 6,000 fans that turned up at Family Arena outside St. Louis to cheer him on.
Immediately after the judges? scores were read Twitter erupted as the mainstream boxing press (most of whom didn?t bother to travel to St. Louis) castigated the judges for scoring a close bout for the local fighter. For the record we had Devon eking out a decision by one point, 95-94.
Matthysse undoubtedly has the heavier hands and floored Devon in the 4th round for the first time in his career but Alexander was able to pop back up immediately and was the busier and more accurate puncher in six out the ten rounds.
Like the Bradley fight, Alexander began by using his speed to box and stay on the outside where his quickness and reach advantage enabled him touch up Matthysse. After a frenetic first three rounds the Argentine found a home for his straight right that put Alexander on his ass in the 4th, where Devon looked shocked for an instant before springing back up to his feet.
?It wasn?t a hard knockdown, it was a flash knockdown,? Alexander said after the fight, acknowledging his opponent ?had a good punch? but nothing he hadn?t seen before. ?You can?t panic in a situation like that. You have to follow the game plan.?
Being forced to take a seat inspired Alexander to come out harder for the middle rounds and he was able to land a series of precise combinations that appeared to affect Matthysse.
But the 7th saw Lucas bring the fight inside and land some dangerous uppercuts behind his right hook. The 8th was more of the same as Devon was caught on the ropes and getting pummeled. Your correspondent?s ringside notes from fight include this from the eighth round: ?Devon may be overmatched in there tonight.? At that point both the crowd and Matthysse appeared to sense the same, with the former growing restless and Lucas returning to his corner with a broad smile on his face.
The 9th round then is where Devon Alexander finally began to lay claim to the ?Great? he has adopted as his moniker. Alexander?s lack of power may be the only thing preventing him from being truly world-class, but in the final two rounds on this night he seized the moment and hit Matthysse with everything he had. Matthysse kept trying to walk through the blows but Alexander?s greater handspeed enabled him to respond to single shots with three or four of his own.
Unsurprisingly the hometown crowd was more enthusiastic about the judges awarding Devon a narrow victory than the fight press, but again accusations of robbery are misplaced. Several of the rounds were very close and could have gone either way, but regardless this was an extremely close fight. Scores of 96-93, 93-96, and 95-94 for Alexander reflect that fact.
?I knew I did enough to win,? Alexander said, noting that he boxed more adeptly in the last few rounds and managed to avoid the Argentine?s big shots.
?It was definitely close. He came to fight,? Alexander said of his opponent, who he called one of the hardest punchers in the division.
?It was a tough fight, everybody saw that. It was anybody?s fight, whoever wanted it most.?
Trainer and former St. Louis police officer Kevin Cunningham admitted he was nervous during the second half of the fight as Alexander forsook the gameplan and began trading with the Knockeador.
?In the second half he kind of got into that warrior mode?he wanted to prove his critics wrong about the questions they had about heart and stuff like that,? Cunningham said.
?He scared the shit out of me but he wanted to let everybody know he?s a warrior. He was in there with the biggest puncher in the division, everybody said [Matthysse] beat Zab Judah in his last fight. This guy was the real deal. Devon showed he could out-box him early in the fight.?
With his usual eloquence King pronounced Alexander ready for ?anybody and everybody? including a rematch with Bradley or even WBC beltholder Amir Khan. While this win may not have erased all doubts about Alexander, it should set him up for one of those fights and give him the chance to do just that.
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