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Showtime ShoBox Recap

April 24, 2009

Scottrade Center-St. Louis, Missouri

Behind a card stacked with local boxers this event has drawn a respectable attendance of 9,138.

Junior Welterweight (140 pounds) 10-Round Match:

Devon Alexander (17-0, 10 KO's, 140 pounds) vs. Jesus Rodriguez (19-3, 5 KO's, 141 pounds)

Alexander had a solid amateur boxing career that culminated when he lost out on a tie-breaker in the finals to represent the United States in the 141-pound division at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics.

A St. Louis native, Alexander is one of Don King's top prospects. Alexander has been on the undercards of several big events featuring fellow St. Louis native Cory Spinks and other major televised events to get him big event experience. This makes Alexander's seventh straight match on the undercard of a major title match. However, this is the first time his match will air on relatively free television.

Alexander's last match was a technical knockout victory over Christopher Fernandez at 3:00 of round 3 as an untelevised match of the Versus card featuring Tomasz Adamek vs. Steve Cunningham for The Ring Championship at 200 pounds on December 11, 2008 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. However, the only undercard match that aired was a match between Joseph Agbeko and William Gonzalez for a title at 118 pounds. Both matches were great, and the event probably featured the best boxing action of any show of the year. Both matches also went to 12-round decisions, leaving no time to get Alexander on the broadcast.

Alexander is unranked by The Ring magazine, but ranked by boxrec.com as the number 29 boxer in the world at 140 pounds.

Rodriguez had very little amateur boxing experience, turning pro after only 12 matches as an amateur.

Rodriguez has been brought in to lose to the hometown boxer in this match. He is a resident of Salinas, California, which is about 45 minutes south of my real hometown, San Jose. Rodriguez has boxed outside of California twice in his professional career. He lost both of those matches.

Rodriguez' last match was an 8-round split decision victory over Alex Viramontes on May 31, 2008 at Harrah's Rincon Casino & Resort in Valley Center, California. Rodriguez would have won via majority decision, but he was docked a point in round 8 for excessive holding.

Rodriguez is unranked by The Ring, and ranked by boxrec.com as the number 72 boxer in the world at 140 pounds.

At 22-years-old, Alexander is 7 years younger then the 29-year-old Rodriguez. Both boxers stand 5' 7" tall. Alexander has the reach advantage with a 70" wingspan, compared to the 69" wingspan of Rodriguez. Neither boxers' unofficial weight approaching match time is available. However since Rodriguez came in over the weight limit, he will likely be the heavier boxer in the ring. Rodriguez will box out of the orthodox stance and Alexander will employ the orthodox stance.

The unified rules of boxing are in effect for this event. All of the official judges keeping score of this match from ringside are from Missouri. The referee is Mike England.

With 50 seconds to go in round 1, a straight right hand drops Alexander to the canvas. He appeared to be slightly off balance when he was hit and not badly hurt by the punch that dropped him. The referee is ruling it a slip. There is no way that was a slip. On replay it is clear that was a clean knockdown. That is an outrageous hometown call. Rodriguez wins round 1, because of the knockdown. However, since it was not ruled an official knockdown, Rodriguez can only win round 1, 10-9. Unfortunately, if the judges' believe Alexander slipped they will score round 1 for the local boxer, 10-9. Alexander easily wins round 2, 10-9. Rodriguez was turning to his corner looking confused during round 2. Alexander lands several good left hooks to take round 3, 10-9. The southpaw's superior work rate wins round 4, 10-9, and after 4 rounds Alexander leads on my scorecard, 39-37. After 4 rounds, Showtime's color commentary for this event, Steve Farhood, has the match scored in favor of Alexander, 40-36. Farhood scored all of the first 4 rounds for Alexander by the same score of 10-9, going along with the referee's incorrect ruling of a slip in round 1.

The busier Alexander wins round 5, 10-9. Rodriguez is much better in round 6. The Californian is finally somewhat active. However, Alexander becomes more active in response and wins the close round 6, 10-9. Alexander landed several hard straight left hands to win round 7, 10-9. After 7 rounds, Alexander leads on my scorecard, 69-64. Alexander is having a lot more problems with Rodriguez then was anticipated. The southpaw who is historically a very accurate puncher is missing on a lot of punches.

With 1:42 to go in round 8, Rodriguez drops to a knee after taking a left hand to the face. While on his knee Rodriguez complains about being hit in the back of the head as he started to step back and voluntarily take a knee. The referee is not buying it as the reason for the knockdown. Rodriguez stands at the count of 7, but walks away from the official and towards his corner. Rodriguez' corner needs to understand that as code that their charge wants out of this match. The referee tells Rodriguez to keep his head up, since he is being hit in the back of the head when he drops his head. Therefore, Rodriguez is creating the illegal blows that makes it so the punches are not fouls. That is an excellent explanation by the referee. The whole time the referee was explaining this to Rodriguez, the boxer was looking at his corner. They really need to stop this match. It would be hard for him to send a more clear signal to them that he wants out of this match. The referee hesitantly allows Rodriguez to continue with 1:23 to go in the round. The official probably should have stopped it there, because it does not look like Rodriguez wants to continue. Strangely, Alexander does not go hard to finish Rodriguez when the action is resumed. Rodriguez was hurt and looking for an excuse to go down, but Alexander punched much less then normal in the remaining time in the round. Alexander even held in the last 20 seconds of round 8. Still, the knockdown gives Alexander round 8, 10-8. With 2:14 to go in round 9, Rodriguez takes another knee. He had taken a combination about 4 seconds earlier. Alexander then backed away and was starting to come forward when Rodriguez decided to go to a knee, again. Someone has to stop the match this time. The referee is going to put in a count, and he gets to 10 with 2:03 to go in round 9. Rodriguez chose not to get up that time. The boxer stood immediately after the referee said 10. Rodriguez' corner should have never put him in that position.

The final outcome courtesy of Marc Lichtenfeld: at 58 seconds of round 9 the referee has reached the count of 10 making the winner by knockout and still undefeated, Devon Alexander "The Brave". The win moves Alexander to 18-0 with now 11 wins coming by way of knockout.

Alexander did get the knockout win in this match, but his performance was underwhelming. His connect percentage appeared to be very low. The knockout appeared to come as much from Rodriguez' losing the will to continue then being seriously hurt. Regardless, Alexander is a mandatory challenger to one of Timothy Bradley's title belts at this point. It appears Alexander will not box again until he can challenge for that title. He is still very green and appears unready for that title match. Alexander will need to spend a lot of time in the gym in the few months preparing for the constant pressure he will face against Bradley.

Rodriguez showed solid defense in this match and very little else. He is probably going to resume boxing on the undercards of small shows in California.

This match was poor and an easy skip.