By Dave Lahr: Undefeated light welterweight contender Devon Alexander (18-0, 11 KOs) defeated Jesus Rodriguez (19-4, 5 KOs) by a 9th round TKO on Friday night on the undercard of the Cory Spinks vs. Latimore bout at the Scottrade Center, in Saint Louis, Missouri. Alexander, 22, knocked Rodriguez down with a right-left combination at the end of the 8th round, and then at the start of the 9th round, Alexander finished Rodriguez off with a short left uppercut to the head.
By then, Rodriguez probably would have gone down with any shot from Alexander, because he had absorbed a lot of punishment for eight long rounds and looked as if he couldn’t take any more.
The fight was terribly one-sided from the first round, as Rodriguez just seemed incapable of letting his hands go with any regularity. Although his record was decent going into the fight at 19-3, Rodriguez fought like a fighter with a 4-19 record, because he just wasn’t throwing punches for the most part and just letting Alexander punch without having to worry about any return fire.
Alexander, who likes to fight on the inside, dominated the first eight rounds with combinations in close. Since there was nothing coming back from Rodriguez, Alexander was able to do pretty much as he pleased. He landed a lot of straight left hands, right hooks and uppercuts, while Rodriguez was limited to a few punches per round.
It was kind of strange, because to look at Rodriguez, a powerful guy, you’d think he can punch a little. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to see if he could or not because he rarely threw anything at Alexander. As the rounds went by, Rodriguez took more and more punishment and by the 8th round, he looked like he’d had enough. Alexander was then able to knock him down at the end of the round with a combination. At the start of the 9th, Alexander finished Rodriguez off with a left uppercut to the head.
It was difficult to watch this fight for a couple of reasons: starting with the loud grunting that Alexander would make each time he would throw a punch. By the sounds of it, you’d think that Alexander was throwing huge bombs each time he’d throw a punch, but in reality he was throwing a lot of weak shots that seemed out of place with the loud noises that Alexander was making each time he’d throw.
If this was a tennis match, I could somehow stomach all the grunting from Alexander, because at least there would be a little time between grunts, but with him throwing lots of punches, it was nothing a chorus of grunting from him and it was painful to listen to after awhile. I think he needs to work on trying to rid himself of this noise because it’s not fan friendly in my view.
I wish I could say that I was impressed with Alexander’s performance, but I can’t. He’s ranked number #1 in the World Boxing Council light welterweight division, meaning that he will soon likely be getting a shot at WBC champion Timothy Bradley. I see Alexander losing badly against a fighter in the class of Bradley, mostly because Alexander has almost zero power and hasn’t looked impressive in the fights that I’ve seen him in.
Alexander could possibly beat a fighter like Andriy Kotelnik, the IBF light welterweight champion, but unfortunately for Alexander, Kotelnik will be fighting Amir Khan in June, so there’s no opportunity for Alexander to get a shot. Kotelnik might even be too powerful for Alexander, because Kotelnik has decent power, whereas Alexander has none as far as I can tell.
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