Boxing News Boxing News
Saturday night at the Silverdome in Pontiac, MI, WBO light welter champion Timothy Bradley added the WBC belt of Devon Alexander to his collection via tenth round technical decision in a battle of unbeaten fighters.
The action started off slowly as both fighters were cautious until Bradley began to find range with his southpaw stance in the third frame. Alexander was cut by a head clash but began to fire back in an eventful fourth round.
Alexander couldn’t maintain the momentum as the aggressive Bradley regained control, aided by several more head clashes in the middle frames.
But the WBC titlist came back strong by the seventh, using his faster hands to nullify Bradley’s inside attack but the success was short-lived as again the WBO champion found away to stifle his adversary.
Bradley built upon his lead as the contest went into the later frames, landing big shots until yet another head clash caused the ringside doctor to rule out any further participation by Alexander, handing Bradley a technical decision victory via scores of 98-93, 97-93 and 96-95.
Alexander, who loses for the first time, dropping to 21-1 (13), has vowed to exercise a rematch clause against Bradley, who improves to 27-0 (11), and is now the WBC and WBO light welterweight champion.
The undercard saw heavyweight Bermane Stiverne, 20-1-1 (9), stop previously undefeated Kertson Manswell, 20-1 (15), in the second round for the vacant WBC International, USNBC and the WBA Fedelatin titles.
A big upset at welterweight took place on the bill as spoiler Allen Conyers, 12-4 (9), dropped unbeaten prospect James De La Rosa, 20-1 (12), three times enroute to a unanimous ten round decision.
Ex-IBF lightweight kingpin Julio Diaz, 38-6 (27), stopped Pavel Miranda, 16-7-1 (8), in the eighth at welterweight while former WBO light welter titlist Kendall Holt, 26-4 (14), returned after two consecutive losses and a year away from the ring to halt Lenin Arroyo, 20-15-1 (4), who has now lost eight in a row, in the first.
