By Dan Ambrose: Timothy Bradley (27-0, 11 KO’s) took the fight to Devon Alexander (21-1, 13 KO’s) last January and seemed to make him quit in the 10th due to his heavy pressure. The fight was technically halted in the 10th round after Alexander had a problem recovering from a headbutt in the round. It looked as if Alexander simply quit and didn’t want anymore of Bradley. The fight then went to the judges and Bradley won by a 10th round technical decision.

Alexander, of course, wants a rematch but that’s not going to happen for a while until he redeems himself. Alexander has an opportunity to start making up for the Bradley fight in his next scheduled bout next month on June 25th against Argentinian slugger Lucas Matthysse (28-1, 26 KO’s) at The Family Arena in Saint Louis, Missouri. This will be a hometown fight for 24-year-old Alexander, meaning that it may be tough for Matthysse to win a decision there unless he does something extra specially like knocking Alexander down two or three times in the fight.

We already saw Alexander win a questionable 12 round decision just last year against Andriy Kotelnik while fighting at home in Saint Louis. It was for this reason that Bradley wanted no part of fighting Alexander in Saint Louis, even though it would have meant a much bigger fan attendance for the fight. Bradley didn’t want to take a chance that he would be on the opposite end of a hometown decision. Matthysse has the power and the pressure to take the judges out of this fight by knocking Alexander out or pressuring him enough to where the outcome will be academic. However, Matthysse was beaten last year by Zab Judah by a questionable 12 round decision while fighting in Judah’s hometown.

Matthysse got off to a slow start in the first four rounds but totally dominated the fight from the 5th round on, knocking Judah down in the 10th and completely battering him in the second half of the fight. Still, Matthysse lost the fight. He learned a lesson in the process that you can’t start slow and take it easy on fighters when they’re fighting at home. Alexander doesn’t have the power to really worry Matthysse and this is going to be interesting to see how Alexander reacts to the pressure that Matthysse puts on him in this fight.