Maidana vs. Alexander, Broner vs. Perez, Wilder vs. TBA only two weeks away

By Boxing News - 02/11/2012 - Comments

Image: Maidana vs. Alexander, Broner vs. Perez, Wilder vs. TBA only two weeks awayBy Dan Ambrose: The interesting fight card headlined by Marcos Maidana (31-2, 28 KO’s) vs. Devon Alexander (22-1, 13 KO’s) is only two weeks away for the February 25th HBO televised fight at the Scottrade Center in Saint Louis, Missouri.

Maidana, 28, will be moving up to welterweight for this fight and it’s going to be a test to see if his power carries up with him at this weight, 147lbs. For Alexander, a former IBF/WBC 140-pound champion, it’ll also be his first fight at 147 and it’ll take away his excuses that he’s made for his poor performances in fights against Andriy Kotelnik, Timothy Bradley and Lucas Matthysse.

Alexander lost to Bradley and won what many boxing fans saw as gift decisions over Kotelnik and Matthysse while fighting at home in Saint Louis. Alexander said that he had been weakened in those fights due to his struggles to make the 140 pound weight limit. Those excuses can no longer fly now that he’s moving up to 147.

If he looks terrible in this fight and still wins a gift decision, then you have to figure that Alexander was overrated to begin with, which is what I suspect was the for him. Maidana is taking a risk by agreeing to fight Alexander in his home city where he’s won two consecutive controversial decisions, but it looks like Maidana couldn’t resist the huge gate money that the fight will bring in. Alexander packs in a lot of fans to see him each time he fights and we could see a big crowd of 10,000 fans.

Perhaps what could be an even better fight on the card will be unbeaten World Boxing Organization (WBO) super featherweight champion Adrien Broner (22-0, 18 KO’s) making his first defense of his title against #1 WBO ranked contender Eloy Perez (23-0-2, 7 KO’s).

This is going to be a real test to see if Broner is as good as he looked in his wins over Jason Litzau and Vicente Martin Rodriguez or if he’s the same fighter that struggled to a controversial 10 round unanimous decision win over Daniel Ponce De Leon in March 2011. Perez doesn’t have much power but he’s highly skilled and fights like a slugger. He’ll create a lot of opportunities for the counter punching Broner to land big shots in this fight.

Unbeaten 2008 Olympic U.S heavyweight Deontay Wilder (20-0, 20 KO’s) will be looking to continue his perfect knockout string against an opponent still to be determined in an 8 round scheduled bout. Wilder can really punch and he’s got a lot of people excited about his potential in the heavyweight division.



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