Devon Alexander is not a kid anymore. He turned 25 this month. He has won two world boxing championships. He knows a big fight when he sees one.
And this, he says, is a big one, even if there are no titles at stake.
Alexander, the flag-carrier for St. Louis boxing, faces Marcos Maidana of Argentina tonight in the headline attraction of a 10-fight card at Scottrade Center that will be televised on HBO. Even though there are no world titles at stake, the fight represents a turning point for Alexander. He's moved to a new weight class, fighting as a welterweight at 147 pounds after spending his entire career at 140. The move should make him a better fighter, since making the 140-pound limit was increasingly becoming a challenge and was draining his strength, and there's another significant benefit to 147 pounds.
"There's more talent at 147," Alexander said.
Which is what makes the stakes so high today. There are fighters at 147 pounds such as Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, fighters whose names are associated with a) being the best in the world and b) fighting for an awful lot of money. If Alexander wants to get into that mix, he needs to establish himself as a prime contender at 147 pounds. This would be step one.
"Whoever wins this fight is going to be catapulted into stardom," said Kevin Cunningham, Alexander's trainer and manager. "He's in the mix with the Mayweathers and the Pacquiaos. It's not like it's a building thing, this is a big fight. Two great fighters. Two of the best fighters in the world, fighting each other and the winner has big leverage."
Between, them, the two have just three losses in 56 career fights. Maidana is a world champion at 140 pounds who is also moving up to 147 because he, too, knows the view from there is better. (But he's hanging on to his 140-pound belts, just in case.) He has a reputation as being one of the top brawlers in the business, fighting with a full-ahead determination. While Alexander's reputation is as more of a stylish boxer than a heavy hitter (he has just 13 knockouts in 23 fights), he said moving up a class has given him more strength and energy.
"Everybody knows what he's coming to do," Alexander said. "Everybody knows he's coming straight for me. It's up to me to follow the game plan and as always, we've got a tremendous game plan. But you're going to see some power. I don't think I have to dance for 10 rounds. It's about being smart and now that I have my energy back I don't have to do as much (dodging) to try to win a fight."
The lead-up to the fight has been a busy one for Tim Lueckenhoff, head of the Missouri Office of Athletics, which oversees boxing in the state. First there were concerns about the judges after Maidana's countryman, Lucas Matthysse, lost a split decision in Alexander's last fight that Matthysse thought he had won. So Lueckenhoff assembled a panel from England, Puerto Rico and Connecticut, though the Maidana camp, citing the war in the Falkland Islands between the United Kingdom and Argentina, objected to the English judge. (Lueckenhoff kept him.) And then, a couple of weeks ago, the Maidana camp told Lueckenhoff they had heard rumors of performance enhancing drugs by Alexander — a charge Alexander vehemently denied — leading Lueckenhoff to find an out-of-state drug testing agency to collect urine samples before and after the fight. (Normally testing is done by the state only after the fight.) With that, Lueckenhoff hoped to put to rest potential claims of a hometown decision by the judges or of a hometown drug test for Alexander. "It's been a long process," Lueckenhoff said.
"It wasn't any distraction for us," said Cunningham, who said Alexander's camp was one of his least stressful because of the weight change. "You don't want to be falsely accused of something like that. I was a little perturbed by the accusations."
The co-main event is between Adrien Broner and Eloy Perez, both of whom are undefeated, for Broner's WBO junior lightweight belt. Broner is 22-0 with 18 knockouts, Perez 23-0-2 with seven knockouts, and the two have certainly been the most entertaining leading up the fight, going jaw to jaw at the prefight news conference Thursday. To get to the 130-pound limit for the fight, Perez had to go buck naked in the City Hall rotunda on Friday, with Lueckenhoff and some others protecting Perez's modesty. Then as Broner and Perez posed for face-to-face photos, Broner leaned in to yell at Perez, their two heads made contact and the next thing you knew, Broner had his hands around Perez's neck before promoter Oscar De La Hoya, showing he's still quick, moved in to separate them.
Other fights on the card: Sharif Bogere (21-0) vs. Sergio Rivera (25-8-2), junior welterweights; Eddie Gomez (7-0) vs. David Lopez (3-7-3), junior middleweights; Deontay Wilder (20-0) vs. Marlon Hayes (23-10), heavyweights; Keith Thurman (15-0) vs. Chris Fernandez (19-14-1), junior middleweights; Chris Pearson (2-0) vs. Jeremy Wood (1-4), middleweights; Brandon Baue (12-5) from Troy, Mo., vs. Robbie Cannon (12-6-2) from Festus, welterweights; Tyrone Chatman (8-1-1) from St. Louis vs. Marlon Smith (2-0) from St. Louis, junior welterweights; Jose Ponce (2-0) from High Ridge vs. Jonathan Brown (0-1), cruiserweights.
