Last night HBO special never had a chance of living up to the hype – for one thing, we all had neglected the old cliché "styles make fights."

To give credit to the Bradley performance, he pretty much worked his usual style of bringing the action - but the onus goes to Alexander who has the tools of a quick handed counter puncher, but failed to use the port side advantage effectively.

The point-stat computer numbers read like we were watching a tightly contested affair with Alexander landing more punches than Bradley - on that note, the HBO-Showtime-ESPN fight channels should collectively dismiss those punching the keys, and disband it come scoring boxing.

Maybe, just maybe, had the early stanza three meeting of the minds not happened, with Alexander coming out second best and leaking over the right eye, the fight could have lived up to the pre-fight shout.

Most Alexander punches arrived from outside the proverbial 3-point line, when touching the target there was nothing of significance left - while Bradley, sloppy at times, carried the demeanor of a fighter more intent on coming out a winner.

Alexander showed flashes of past performance during stanza seven, and was doing well in numero eight, until late in the round when another inadvertent head butt saw him coming out second best.

Finally candle ten, and another clash of noggins sees Alexander pleading no mas to referee Frank Garza who invited the house quack in for a second opinion – result, end of the action by going to the scorecards.

All three judges saw Bradley the winner 97-93, 98-93, 96-95 - my unofficial agreed Bradley 98-92 in points and 8-2 under round by round method.

Post Scripts: Timothy Bradley (27-0, 11 KOs) ~ age 27 - what you see is what you get - a well conditioned, no frills tough customer who arrives to wage war. At times can become reckless but at this point remains unbeaten.

Devon Alexander (21-1, 13 KOs) ~ age 23 - young enough to recover from first career debit. But first the assorted skills in need of a tune-up.

Less celebrity may also help the cause. He will likely return, as the late General Mac once did after leaving Corregidor early in WW2 when things got too hot.