By Michael Collins: Marcos Maidana (31-2, 28 KO’s) must a very brave fighter because he’s about to go where no fighter have ever gone and come out on the other side with a victory by taking on Devon Alexander (22-13 KO’s) in his home city of Saint Louis, Missouri on February 25th.
The fight will be held at welterweight, so Maidana at least won’t lose his World Boxing Association (WBA) World light welterweight title if he gets jobbed out of a decision, but he’ll still get stuck with a ‘L’ on his record and that could hurt his future earning potential.
You have to wonder if Maidana knows the history of Alexander’s fights in the Saint Louis, because if he did Maidana would have to be dragged kicking and screaming all the way to the Scottrade Center to fight Alexander on February 25th. In the last two years, Alexander has beaten Andriy Kotelnik and Lucas Matthysse at home in Saint Louis and as far as I can tell, Alexander came close to winning neither of them. I had the guy losing both fights, yet he the judges gave him decision wins in both fights.
It only took Timothy Bradley one glimpse of Alexander’s fight against Kotelnik to know that there was on earth that he was get anywhere near Saint Louis when it came his turn to fight Alexander in January 2011. Rather than risk fighting in Saint Louis and getting jobbed too, Bradley opted to fight Alexander in the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan where neither fighter had any real fans.
Bradley didn’t care. He decided he’d rather fight in front of a small crowd instead of taking his chances of losing a home town decision in Saint Louis against Alexander. Matthysee ignored history and fought Alexander in Saint Louis and got the same treatment that Kotelnik did, losing a highly questionable 10 round split decision. Afterwards, Matthysse must have been kicking himself for his decision to fight Alexander there rather than in a neutral venue.
Alexander has good skills and can beat anyone in the welterweight or light welterweight division in a six round fight. But it’s when the fight goes past the 6th is where Alexander is starting to have problems with his stamina. He faded badly the Kotelnik fight down the stretch and then did the same in the Matthysse fight. He pointed out after Matthysse fight that he would no longer be fighting at 140 because it was draining him to make weight. As such, he’s supposed to have been conditioning in this fight. I’ll believe that when I see it. I still don’t think Maidana will win decision in this fight. If he’s going to win it’s going to be by knockout.