By Tom David Druary: This issue arose quite a while ago now, it is in regards of the Devon Alexander, Timothy Bradley match up. My question is do today’s boxers lack the core toughness of previous generations?
When Devon Alexander in essence resigned himself from the fight against Timothy Bradley on the 29th January it raised questions in my mind. For a start, i asked myself, are today’s fighters simply not as tough as those of yesteryear?
Alexander had been cut early in the fight after a collision with Bradley’s shaved dome of a head. He showed distress from further collision’s then simply gave up when another one occurred in the 10th round. Obviously it must have been unpleasant for Alexander to suffer cut’s and constantly worry about colliding with Bradley’s head but this is professional boxing, the two men were fighting for two titles in the 140-pound division and each was guaranteed a million-dollar-plus purse.
Boxing is being challenged by the rise in popularity of mixed martial arts events so was depending on a compelling contest between these two fighters and expectant of the fighters fighting through adversity if need be. Alexander wasn’t prepared to do this, I’m not in the mind or body of Devon Alexander but at that moment, lets be honest, Alexander said the thing’s that made the doctor stop the fight.
Champions of previous generations would consider it a mark of shame to surrender in the ring. Ring history gives us so many examples of a boxer enduring pain and punishment in a big fight, one of those examples was Jim Braddock, an artery in his lip severed, bloody and battered and outgunned against Joe Louis, telling his manager Joe Gould, he would never speak to him again if he stopped the fight. Braddock wanted to go down fighting.
A final thought: The WBC’s head-clash rule, in which, when one boxer is cut his opponent is automatically docked a point might have kept the Bradley, Alexander fight going if it was in effect in the U.S as it would make Bradley think before lunging in with his dome, and seeing his opponent penalized might have encouraged Alexander to stay in the fight.
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