Did Alexander quit against Bradley?

By Boxing News - 01/30/2011 - Comments

Image: Did Alexander quit against Bradley?By Eric Thomas: WBC light welterweight champion Devon Alexander (21-1, 13 KO’s) looked like he did a quit job in the 10th round against WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (27-0, 11 KO’s). It’s hard to see it any other way than Alexander flat out quitting, because he had a delayed reaction after a clash of heads with Bradley in the 10th round. Instead of pulling back after the head clash, Alexander showed no reaction for a split second before pulling back and wincing in pain from where the contact took place above his left eye. Alexander seemed like he was acting in my view.

Alexander was then given time to shake off the blow, but instead of getting it together during the brief timeout in the action, Alexander continued to wince constantly, grimacing a lot, making a lot of pained noises and looking as if he didn’t want to continue. The referee, seeing that Alexander wasn’t about to resume fighting any time soon, then halted the fight. The fight then went to the score cards where Bradley won it by the scores of 97-93, 96-95 and 98-93.

You have to wonder if Alexander thought he might have been slightly ahead on the scorecards at the time in the 10th, and may have been hoping that he could get a close decision win. Alexander was fading at the time of the fight and had it continued through the 11th and 12th, he would have likely lost by a significant margin. So did Alexander take the opportunity to quit in the fight following the headbutt or was he generally hurt enough for the fight to be stopped? It looked to me like Alexander didn’t want any more and did a quit job rather than suffer the pain and embarrassment of being dominated in the final rounds of the fight.



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