Alexander: “He [Bradley] couldn’t handle my power”

By Chris Williams: WBC light welterweight champion Devon Alexander (21-1, 13 KO’s) looked like the classic case of a fighter in denial last night after being beaten by WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (27-0, 11 KO’s) by a 10 round technical decision. Alexander failed to throw enough punches, backed up too much when getting attacked, and held entirely too much to get the win. After the fight, Alexander spoke as if he had just woken up from a dream, saying “He [Bradley] didn’t stop me from using my skills. I thought I was winning the fight. He couldn’t handle my power and I thought I was hurting him too.”

Who is Alexander trying to kid? His shots had no affect on Bradley, and they weren’t slowing him down for an instant. If anyone was hurt in the fight, it was Alexander, who kept wincing all the time when he would get hit. Alexander needed to be quiet and just accept the pain instead of looking at the referee all the time for him to bail him out. As soon as I saw that starting to happen early on, I knew it was curtains for Alexander.

He didn’t like the pain and was troubled when Bradley was coming in and landing shots under his guard. Granted, Bradley did connect with some nice headbutts from time to time, but Alexander needed to accept it and realize that it’s just part of the game. Getting bumps, cuts and bruises go with the territory. It looked like Alexander was hoping the referee would step in, penalize and/or disqualify Bradley. All I can say to that is that Alexander has been fighting for too long in his home Arena in Saint Louis and that has affected him to the point where he’s used to having the referee help him out while fighting at home. This is why it’s not a good idea to get used to fighting at home all the time, because when you put a fighter like Alexander in a neutral or hostile arena, they’re like a fish out of water.