Damn - I can smell that St Louis grill right now...
Hadn't seen the fight before (just tubed it), but yeah, Alexander basically shadow-boxed his way to a home victory. The Lederman card was just silly. I can see how Devons activity could impress, but the simple reality was that Kotelnik was scoring with his punches, Alexander wasn't.
Tut tut.
That fight kickstarted a slew of corrupt decisions.
Kotelnik would hit Alexander, bring that same hand back to his face and beautifully parry Devon's "counter" all night long. Unreal.
All praise to Porter for beating Devon's ass and yet they had that one scored close too. :dance:
I think Porter beat him up worse, but Kotelnik clearly outboxed Alexander. Disgusting robbery. That was one of Lederman's worse scorecards too, he had it 10-2 Alexander just because he was throwing punches. Literally his criteria when he explained why he was scoring the rounds how he was.
I think the Matthysse fight overshadows how big of a robbery the Kotelnik fight was. I thought the Matthysse beat Alexander. But that fight seems to always get brought up, and most seem to forget that the Kotelnik fight was a far worse robbery.
The right side of Alexanders face was completely swollen. He had absolutely no answer for the jab. He ate jabs the entire fight. He got out boxed. It was a lop-sided defeat to everyone except the judges.
This was one of the worst decisions of recent memory. There wasn't much uproar because it came against an unflashy Ukrainian, but if you think Devon was unbeaten and a dual champion at the time, this could have resurrected Kotelniks career. It reminds me of when de la Hoya received a gift against Sturm, the controversy was largely ignored in favour of the upcoming super fight/unification.
Also I think this is Khans most underrated win, when you look at the trouble Andriy gave to other fighters, Khan boxed the perfect fight against him.