Alexander-Witter, Bradley-Campbell this Saturday Night

By Dave Lahr: This Saturday night boxing fans will have the privilege of watching one of the better fight cards in quite some time when former IBF/WBA/WBO lightweight champion Nate Campbell (33-5-1, 25 KO’s) steps up a weight class to challenge World Boxing Organization light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (24-0, 11 KO’s) at the Aqua Caliente Casino, in Rancho Mirage, California.

That’s not all, folks. There’s also former WBC light welterweight champion Junior Witter (37-2-2, 22 KO’s) taking on American former amateur star Devon Alexander (18-0, 11 KO’s) for the vacant WBC light welterweight title. This is a match up the young – Bradley and Alexander – vs. the old – Campbell and Witter.

As you guess, the youngsters have most of the betting money being put on them. However, in the case of Alexander, he’s still largely unproven and not in the same class as Bradley, who appears to be the best light welterweight in the division.

We may have one of the young fighters winning and the other being sent packing. It depends, really, how much Witter has left in the tank. He was beaten by Bradley last year in a 12 round split decision. Alexander, although a great amateur fighter, he hasn’t been prepared well for this Saturday night’s fight against Witter, because Alexander’s handlers have brought him up very slowly against generally the softest of opponents.

The one name that stands out on Alexander’s resume is DeMarcus Corley, who Alexander defeated by a 12 round unanimous decision last year in January. However, Alexander didn’t look impressive in that fight and showed very little power.

Nothing has changed since then, because Alexander isn’t really a power puncher and is more of a combination puncher rather than a fighter that sits down on his shots. He has a good percentage of knockouts on his resume, but those have come against the C class fighters that Alexander has been spoon fed since turning pro five years ago in 2004.

Alexander will have to step up his game a level or three if he’s going to be able to beat Witter. This is a different kind of opponent altogether from what Alexander has faced in the past. Witter might have too much skills for Alexander to deal with. If both fighters were at the same age, this would be an easy fight to predict.

Witter is clearly the better fighter with the better skills, but he’s getting up there in age and at 35, it’s unclear how much Witter has left. He’s going to have to be able to fight hard for 12 full rounds against Alexander or else he’ll end up losing another close decision like he did in the Bradley fight.

I like Alexander as a fighter, but he hasn’t shown the ability to beat fighters like Witter or Bradley at this point in his career. Alexander is more of methodical fighter who likes to pound to the body of his opponents on the inside. Unlike some body punchers that can really bang to the body, Alexander is rather dull and ordinary because of his lack of power.

The question in this fight is whether Witter will allow Alexander to fight his inside game. My guess is no. Alexander may be forced to fight on the outside because Witter doesn’t let his opponents get to close to him without moving away. I see this fight as a Witter win, but given the location of the fight, I think Alexander will win a controversial decision.

The Bradley-Campbell fight will be much easier to predict. Campbell is the bigger puncher, but he doesn’t have the work rate, or the ability to throw combinations the way that Bradley does. Bradley showed a lot in his last fight against Kendall Holt, getting off the deck twice to dominate Holt and make him look old. I expect the same thing to happen here. I don’t see Campbell knocking Bradley down because he’s not nearly as fast as Holt is.

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