By Jim Dower: In a battle of former champions, Victor Ortiz (32-6-3, 25 KOs) and Devon Alexander (27-4-1, 14 Kos) fought to a 12 round majority draw on Saturday night on Premier Boxing Champions on Fox at the Don Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas.
Alexander, 31, controlled the first half of the fight, and Ortiz came on to dominate most of the second half of the contest. Alexander looked like he did enough to rate the victory, but the 3 judges scored it 115-113 for Ortiz, 114-114 and 114-114. Boxing News 24 saw it as a win for Alexander with him winning 8 rounds to 4.
Many of the rounds were close where either guy could have been given the nod. Alexander’s work stood out more due to his boxing ability. Alexander wasn’t letting his hands go enough in the last 4 rounds for him to earn a decision with the judges.
Ortiz, 31, showed flashes of the ability that had so many boxing fans excited about his potential earlier in his career before started losing frequently. The southpaw Ortiz landed a lot of heavy shots in rounds 7 through 12. A lesser fighter than Alexander would have been knocked by Ortiz’s heavy punches, but he took the blows and was able to make the rounds close despite him looking exhausted.
Ortiz landed some big punches in round 10 to the body and head that Alexander absorbed well. By that point in the fight, Alexander had lost all the power on his punches and he was just pushing his shots.
It wasn’t a good enough performance from either guy to get excited about their potential to make a mark in the 147 lb. weight class. It might be a good idea for Alexander and Ortiz to move on rather than face each other again in a rematch because they’re too evenly matched. The last thing they need is to fight each other 4 months from now and wind up with another 12 round draw.
Unbeaten #6 IBF Caleb Plant (17-0, 10 KOs) boxed his way to a 12 round unanimous decision win over Rogelio “Porky” Medina (38-9, 32 KOs) in an International Boxing Federation super middleweight title eliminator. The scores were 120-108, 119-109 and 117-111.
Plant, 25, was hurt by some big shots from Medina in round 11. Other than that, Plant used his jab to land quick head shots to win the rounds. Medina was slow, and walking into shots the entire fight. Medina looked good in the 11th. but that was the only round were he performed well. Plant was there to be beaten if Medina had put some pressure on him, but was too slow to walk him down the way that the other super middleweights would.
What’s unclear is why Medina, 29, was given the green light to fight in an IBF super middleweight title eliminator in the first place, as he was recently knocked out by David Benavidez in the 8th round last year in May. In 2016, Medina was beaten by former IBF World super middleweight champion James DeGale. In between those losses, Medina beat Roman Olivas and an unknown fighter last September. Medina did not rate to be in an IBF title eliminator tonight. Plant was basically given a title shot by letting him fight the struggling Medina, who is on his way to journeyman status with the way he’s losing so often. Plant didn’t show anything tonight that would give IBF super middleweight champion Caleb Truax nightmares.
Former WBA World junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (31-4. 17 KOs) defeated Juan De La Angel (20-8-1, 18 KOs) by an 8 round unanimous decision. Trout came into the fight with 2 consecutive losses to Jermall Charlo and Jarrett Hurd. Trout is going to need to keep winning for him to get another shot at a title. But the way he was dominated by Charlo and Hurd, it hardly seems worth it for him to go after one of the talented champions. WBO 154 lb. champion Sadam Ali would be Trout’s best bet to win a world title against, but there’s a long line of fighters that want to get a crack at fighting him.
Other boxing results on tonight’s card:
Carlos Balderas U 4 Jorge Rojas Zacazontetl
Tony Harrison UD 8 George Sosa
