Video: Max Kellerman Previews Alexander vs Matthysse

by Scott Christ on Jun 23, 2011 5:15 PM EDT in Boxing Video

Here's a quick video of Max Kellerman and Jim Lampley previewing Saturday night's Boxing After Dark main event between Devon Alexander and Lucas Matthysse.

Kellerman: "The question is, do people really want to see Devon Alexander after it looked like he quit against Tim Bradley? And I don't just mean at the end of the fight. He really didn't engage Bradley all fight long, and turned it into an ugly, boring, disappointing fight. On the other hand, we have seen Devon Alexander on HBO, look spectacular against a face-first, tough, big punching brawler not totally unlike Matthysse, in Juan Urango. The question is, does that Alexander re-emerge given the right style in front of him, or does Matthysse have just enough craft and just enough toughness to turn into Alexander into the kind of running, more amateurish fighter we saw against Timothy Bradley?"

I think Kellerman's breakdown is pretty spot-on -- I'm picking Matthysse, but if Alexander is able to use his speed to make Matthysse look bad, I can certainly see him winning a convincing decision. To me, this is pretty much a pick'em fight, and I've found that as the fight draws near, I'm becoming very interested to see what Alexander looks like against a good, big-punching fighter, especially coming off of not just a loss, but two straight weak performances.

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I think that Urango knockout had a lot to do with Urango being a very weathered fighter at that stage of his career. Sure, Alexander landed some really nice shots, but those were to a guy who’d really taken a lot of punishment in his time around the top. Matthysse isn’t as reckless as Urango or the more prevalent comparison, Maidana; he’s actually got some pretty good skills to go with some serious punching power. I figure he catches Alexander early, and Devon slips into that extremely dull, amateur, pitty patty style for large stretches of the fight, and, unless he gets stopped, wins a very controversial and ugly decision.

"Occasionally, there is a boxing match that, in its demonstration of skill, courage, intelligence, hope, seems to redeem the sport - almost. Perhaps boxing has always been a sport in crisis, a sport of crisis."

by Oli Goldstein on Jun 23, 2011 5:37 PM EDT reply actions

I think that Matthessy is the most dangerous and underratrd fighter in the division and will stop Alexander late in the fight. Full marks to Devon for taking this fight though as noboby else wants to fight him. I think he will wish that he hadn’t within a few rounds.

by LawrenceP on Jun 24, 2011 1:46 AM EDT reply actions