By Ryan Burton

BoxingScene.com recently caught up with Kevin Cunningham who trains and manages former unified junior welterweight champion Devon Alexander who is coming off of a dominate victory over Marcos Maidana.  Coming into the fight the Argentine had suffered only two losses in his career. Both of those defeats were close points losses against former champions Andriy Kotelnik and Amir Khan.

Cunningham told BoxingScene that he was satisfied with his pupil's performance but that he could have won the fight in even more dominating fashion. He said that Alexander deviated from the game plan in an effort to prove the critics wrong. Alexander had his heart and skills questioned by some after his technical decision loss against Tim Bradley and his narrow win over Lucas Matthysse.

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"I thought it was a tremendous performance but he could have beaten Maidana even worse if he had relaxed in there," stated Cunningham. "We had a perfect strategy for Maidana but at a point in the fight he wanted to prove the critics wrong who questioned his heart and skill level.  He decided he wanted to bang with the baddest puncher out there," he continued.  

Cunningham also said that he never understood why some people labeled his fighter as 'boring'. Devon stood his ground and traded punches with the likes of Juan Urango, Kotelnik, Matthysse and now Maidana.

"Devon has always been a fighter. He has never been a runner. Maybe the people who said that need to moves towards something else like M M A. There is nothing boring about this kid," Cunningham told BoxingScene.

The St. Louis based trainer also laughed off comments that the only reason Maidana looked so bad was because he moved up to welterweight for the fight.  Alexander was also making his welterweight debut so one could conclude that the weight wasn't an advantage for either fighter.

"Maidana is known as a puncher so they are trying to say the weight didn't benefit him? They are saying moving up in weight didn't benefit a puncher? Maidana had to strip down and suck in to make 47. He barely made 47 so how did it not benefit him?, Cunningham concluded.

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