Devon Alexander's win over Andriy Kotelnik was harder than it needed to be, says Wayne McCullough.
'Southpaw didn't do enough to indicate he will be the next big thing'
WBC and IBF light welterweight champion Devon Alexander was putting his belts on the line against Ukrainian Andriy Kotelnik in Alexander's hometown of St Louis, Missouri last Saturday.
Alexander, a slick southpaw, won the WBC belt when he defended England's Junior Witter in August 2009. Then in March of this year he added the IBF to his collection by stopping Juan Urango after having him down twice in the fight.
Urango suffered his first KO loss giving Alexander an impressive win since Urango had faced some big names like Ricky Hatton and Andre Berto, who hadn't been able to hurt him.
Kotelnik is a former 2000 Olympic silver medalist who won his WBA belt when he defeated Welshman Gavin Rees in March 2008 and then lost in his most recent fight against Amir Khan in July 2009.
He defended the belt twice, once impressively beating hard punching, top contender Marcos Maidana by split decision in his second defence.
He hasn't fought since the Khan fight which was over a year ago so this fighter, who depends a lot on his reflexes, may not have his timing right.
Kotelnik may have been a champion but was probably the weakest in the division and isn't really a top contender, however he got his chance against Alexander.
Skills
Kotelnik pushed forward in the fight landing right and left hooks off Alexander's head but was mostly beaten to the punch by his opponent's hand speed.
Alexander moved around using his quick double and triple right jabs to set up his straight left but most of the time they were missing or Kotelnik was blocking them with his high guard.
Alexander is similar to the other champions Timothy Bradley and Amir Khan, in that they are not big punchers and rely on their skills rather than power.
He got cut over his right eye in the fourth and although he was moving and boxing well enough he wasn't in complete control with Kotelnik still the one forcing the fight.
The rounds were close to score but they were being given to Alexander. Kotelnik clearly won the fifth and sixth rounds with his good scoring lefts and rights to Alexander's head.
Touted as a future star, Alexander didn't have everything his own way and he was getting hit with clean shots against a light puncher. He certainly didn't look like a future superstar while he was fighting a slightly above average European fighter.
Harder
Alexander was jabbing and moving to his right which is good for a southpaw to do against an orthodox fighter but he was dropping his right hand and was getting caught with left hooks.
In the eighth, Alexander showed a little of what he may be when he pushed Kotelnik and worked his body and head with quick, hard combinations but he didn't do it enough to convince his fans that he may be the next big thing.
Kotelnik looked surprisingly sharp even though he'd had a long layoff and was, as always, well conditioned. By the 10th Kotelnik's left jabs were landing and scoring well and from this point on until the final bell he was the one scoring. He finished stronger in what seemed to be a very close fight to score.
Neither fighter really switched anything up throughout the fight and it was the same pattern round after round with no-one taking control.
Kotelnik proved his worth and pushed the champion but came up short as Alexander was awarded the fight on the three judge's scorecards 116-112.
That means Alexander won eight rounds out of 12 proving that the close rounds were going to the hometown champion. I scored it 115-113 for Alexander and even though he won the fight the TV commentators gave him more credit than he deserved for punches that didn't land.
He said he wants to fight Timothy Bradley next in a unification match but this fight now looks good for Amir Khan who incidentally had no problems with Kotelnik. Alexander made this fight harder for himself than it should have been.
