By Eric Thomas: The last two fighters that have chosen to fight Devon Alexander (22-1, 13 KO’s) in his native Saint Louis, Missouri has lived to regret, with both Lucas Matthysse and Andriy Kotelnik losing by controversial 12 round decisions.

Matthysse had fair warning that it was a mistake to fight Alexander there, and yet he decided to go ahead and do it anyway because the money was good and he felt he could stop him. He didn’t and he ended up losing a 10 round decision that pretty much the entire boxing world saw him winning. Now it’s Marcos Maidana’s turn. He’s been warned, and yet like fellow countryman Matthysse, Maidana feels he’ll still win.

It goes without saying that Maidana is likely going to lose this fight by a controversial decision. I can’t see him winning, but he’s going to have to deal with that on his own. The one positive that Maidana has in this fight is that it’s going to be a 12 round fight, not a 10 rounder. Alexander was completely spent in the last two rounds of his recent 10 round decision win over Matthysse. Had there been an extra two rounds in the fight it would have been hard for Alexander to win the fight even fighting at home.

Timothy Bradley was perhaps the wisest of Alexander’s recent opponents, as he simply refused to fight Alexander in Saint Louis. Bradley didn’t care that he was losing money by choosing another venue. He was more concerned with just being able to have a good chance of getting the decision. So instead of fighting in Saint Louis, Bradley and Alexander fought in Pontiac, Michigan, where Bradley wore down Alexander until he complained of pain in the 10th after a clash of heads. To a lot of boxing fans, they saw Alexander mentally quitting due to the extreme pressure that Bradley had put on him.

Maidana is a pressure fighter with a lot of power. However, he has none of Bradley’s hand speed and he could find it difficult to beat a skilled fighter like Alexander if he elects to use his feet to box Maidana the way that Amir Khan did in his win over Maidana last December. Maidana is very slow and unless his opponents make it easy for him by stopping and trying to fight him in a one-on-one war, he has problems. He’s not quick enough to cut off the ring on a fighter like Alexander and will be totally reliant on him stopping in order for him to win this fight. I can’t see it happening. I think Alexander will end up boxing Maidana’s ears off for an easy 12 round decision win.