By Jason Kim: The HBO showdown between recently beaten light welterweights Devon Alexander (21-1, 13 KO’s) and Lucas Matthysse (28-1, 26 KO’s) is tentatively scheduled for June 25th, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.

This is a fight that both Alexander and Matthysse want, as does HBO. Alexander, 24, was recently beaten by WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley in January by a disappointing 10th round technical decision. Alexander was hurt by a hard head butt from Bradley in the 10th, and because of the pain that Alexander was in from the clash of heads, the ringside doctor opted to stop the fight at that point.

However, Alexander was having problems with Bradley’s better inside game and seemed to be weakening as the fight wore on. Alexander looked pretty poor in the fight and for him this was the second consecutive bad outing. He looked bad in beating Andriy Kotelnik by a questionable 12 round decision in August 2010 while fighting in front of a home crowd in Saint Louis, Missouri.

Alexander has turned out to be a disappointment in terms of having a less than crowd pleasing style of fighting. HBO unfortunately owes Alexander one more fight, hence this is where the Matthysse fight comes in. You can expect that if Alexander doesn’t look a whole better in this fight compared to how he’s been looking, this may be the last we see of Alexander on HBO for a while.

Matthysse, 28, has looked excellent in his last three fights, stopping Rogelio Castaneda Jr in the 1st round, losing a controversial 12 round split decision to Zab Judah while fighting in Judah’s home town last November and then destroying DeMarcus Corley in an 8th round TKO eight knockdown performance last January.

The loss to Judah was one where you could easily say Matthysse was the real winner, because he dominated the fight from the 4th round on, knocking Judah down and completely dominating him in the second half of the fight. It was one-sided after the 4th.

However, Matthysse was fighting in Judah’s home down and it might have taken a knockout for Matthysse to have gotten a win in that fight.

Alexander will have problems with Matthysse’s pressure and power, because Alexander doesn’t hit hard and does poorly when pressured. Matthysse will look at the Alexander-Bradley fight and note that Alexander fell apart under the pressure from the light hitting Bradley.