Instead of just presenting the numbers from CompuBox as we usually do, I have a couple of comments here that I think are pretty important when trying to dissect Devon Alexander's iffy win over Andriy Kotelnik. Here are the CompuBox statistics for the Alexander-Kotelnik fight:
Total Punches Landed / Thrown
Round | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
Alexander | 17/99 | 15/103 | 24/94 | 23/80 | 14/87 | 11/81 | 15/106 | 29/103 | 11/98 | 11/94 | 20/80 | 12/88 |
17% | 15% | 26% | 29% | 16% | 14% | 14% | 28% | 11% | 12% | 25% | 14% | |
Kotelnik | 16/54 | 20/60 | 18/67 | 12/60 | 17/65 | 27/75 | 17/64 | 22/77 | 18/53 | 24/69 | 18/55 | 16/64 |
30% | 33% | 27% | 20% | 26% | 36% | 27% | 29% | 34% | 35% | 33% | 25% |
Jabs Landed / Thrown
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Power Punches Landed / Thrown
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Final PunchStat Report
Punches Landed / Thrown
Total Punches | Jabs | Power Punches | |
Alexander | 202 / 1113 | 64 / 647 | 138 / 466 |
18% | 10% | 30% | |
Kotelnik | 225 / 763 | 116 / 397 | 109 / 366 |
29% | 29% | 30% |
Numbers alone don't tell the story of a fight, but I think you can look at these numbers and see where the pro-Kotelnik crowd is coming from. The official judges scored, it would seem, on workrate for workrate's sake and hometown crowd reaction, and most disturbingly, possibly on the illusion of a jab from Alexander.
The last part I believe is possible -- despite the overwhelming evidence that Alexander did nothing effective with a jab in this fight that is currently staring you right in the face -- because HBO judge Harold Lederman continually touted the Alexander jab as a good reason to score nearly every round for the St. Louis native in front of the St. Louis crowd. As you can plainly see, and as I thought was painfully obvious, Devon Alexander's jab was all for show in the Show Me State. 64 of 647 jabs landed for Alexander, an abysmal 10%. Kotelnik worked a pretty effective jab all night, throwing it much less, but making it count when he did throw it. Despite actually unleashing 250 less jabs than Alexander threw in the fight, Kotelnik landed 52 more of them, and many of them were very good, solid jabs, long one of Kotelnik's best weapons on the offensive side.
Alexander's jab numbers are also boosted by the fourth round, when he went 14/52 (27%) with the jab in the round. I did score that round for Alexander. I thought it was as effective as he was the entire fight, too.
If you go over to the power punches, Alexander threw more again, but this time the numbers in output aren't as dramatic as with the jabs. Devon threw exactly 100 more power punches, landing 29 more. They both landed their power shots at a 30% clip, so they are essentially even there in raw numbers, until you consider that Kotelnik's power shots were far more effective than were Alexander's. Alexander was at no point hurt or in serious danger, I wouldn't say, but Kotelnik's power shots were sharper, harder, cleaner and just better punches than those landed by Devon Alexander tonight.
I am a very big Devon Alexander fan. I have never particularly cared one way or the other about Kotelnik as a fan, and frankly his performance tonight did surprise me. I didn't think Devon looked like he was even so much having an off-night as he was taken to school a bit by the veteran. That's not something to be ashamed of, necessarily. Kotelnik is a good fighter with a fantastic amateur background, and he got a shot tonight and did his best to make it count. Alexander showed a lot of heart, dug down deep to stay in the fight, and in the end, he got the win on the judges' scorecards. I absolutely do not agree in any way that he was the better man in the ring in this fight.
A recent fight that this one reminded me of is the first bout between Paul Williams and Carlos Quintana. That night, Quintana was the better fighter. (Coincidentally, Lederman also scored that fight for Paul Williams, largely on the basis of a Williams jab that did not exist.) And in that fight, Quintana got the W he had earned. It was a shocking result, and I felt every bit as a surprised watching this fight play out as I was that night, when it got to a certain point and I realized that, hey, whoa, this guy's really winning this fight and really might walk out of here with the upset if the world is fair. The world, of course, is not fair.
I don't think Alexander would take Kotelnik out in one in a rematch, and there won't be a rematch because Alexander can now move on to bigger money fights. He got a career-high $500,000 payday for this one, and will make more to fight Timothy Bradley in January, which appears all but locked in. King is for it, Shaw is now really for it, and the fighters both want it.
In the long run, and in the real world where this result stands and it is what it is and life is going to move on starting today, the best and most positive way I can look at this is by thinking that Devon Alexander probably became a better fighter because of this fight. Almost all highly-touted prospects meet this sort of challenge where they probably get more than they had bargained for. That's what happens when you fight good fighters. Alexander has fought two straight guys who were top 10 at 140 when he fought them. He dismantled the lumbering Juan Urango, and had some serious difficulty with the technically sound Kotelnik. And styles make fights and all that.
It was also a good fight, which shouldn't be overlooked. Even though I felt it was largely ineffective, Alexander's workrate is an asset. Usually he applies his output better than Kotelnik allowed him to in this fight, and I do think it was Kotelnik's good, simple, strong defense that made Alexander less effective than normal. This wasn't simply a fight you can write off as being an off-night for Alexander, it was a very good night for Kotelnik, who just had a more effective gameplan and was, at least in my view, the superior boxer in the ring on this evening.
Scoring a fight is a round-by-round breakdown. I don't believe Kotelnik flat blew Alexander out of the water or anything, despite a one-sided score. I just thought he kept winning rounds. If one guy nicks seven close rounds at 10-9 and another guy fairly well dominates 5 rounds at 10-9, you've got the nicking fellow by 115-113. But that wasn't how this fight played out, either. I thought the clearest rounds of the fight were almost all Kotelnik's. He consistently landed better blows, was good countering and timing Alexander, and made his opponent miss constantly. While Kotelnik cut a respectable pace himself, actually (averaging about 64 punches thrown per round), Alexander threw over 1100 punches in the fight. That he landed a mere 18% of them apparently didn't matter to the ringside judges.
The PunchStats for the highly competitive Tavoris Cloud-Glen Johnson fight are after the jump.
CompuBox Notes: Cloud's power punching was the difference vs. Johnson, 41, who averaged 74 punches thrown per round, outlanding Cloud in total punches, 254-246.
Total Punches Landed / Thrown
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Jabs Landed / Thrown
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Power Punches Landed / Thrown
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Final PunchStat Report
Punches Landed / Thrown
Total Punches | Jabs | Power Punches | |
Cloud | 246 / 682 | 79 / 309 | 167 / 373 |
36% | 26% | 45% | |
Johnson | 254 / 883 | 134 / 512 | 120 / 371 |
29% | 26% | 32% |