HBO Saturday night B.A.D. delivered a dandy championship
twin-bill with favorites Tavoris Cloud and Devon Alexander prevailing over
persistent challengers Glen Johnson and Andreas Kotelnik.
Action began with light heavies Cloud & Johnson for
Cloud’s IBF strap - it's all Cloud over most of the front side showing the
far quicker of the two. Stanza five a Cloud triple left hook gets Johnson
attention and late in the stanza it’s a sneak right hand that has Johnson
wobbly.
The old road warrior survives an early stanza six before
countering effectively late in the round - continues during numero seven and
the cool counterpunching Johnson has himself back to back winning rounds.
Johnson would have a good round nine with Cloud taking
the stanza off - finally, the run to the wire, proverbial "championship"
stanzas 10-11-12 saw Cloud having more in the tank for a winning defense.
Official scoring had it unanimous Cloud 116-112, 116-112,
116-112 - my unofficial agreed Cloud in points 116-112 and under the round
by round method 8-4.
Post Scripts: Tavoris Cloud (21-0, 18 KOs) ~ age 28 -
this young IBF champion has quality speed in all departments - good enough
puncher from both sides to keep the other 175 share holders honest. Talk is
Tavoris has “Bad” Chad Dawson in his sights. Interesting if it’s made.
Glen Johnson (50-14-2, 34 KOs) ~ age 41 - still has
good chin and alert defense but has to pick his spots when thinking
counterpunch. Sixty-Six kept appointments in the fight biz translates to
retirement time.
.......................................................................................................................
The main event with Devon Alexander “The Great” defending the IBF-WBC jr.
welter baubles against game veteran Andreas Kotelnik of Hamburg Germany via
the Ukraine.
Begins with the swift slinging Alexander having the
better over the early candles, the quicker of the two and working from the
port side advantage- and come the halfway mark of seven this one had all the
trappings of an Alexander cake walk.
Then come stanza eight and it’s Kotelnik coming alive
against a slowed version of Alexander and sure enough the tough Ukraine
begins making it a fight - Alexander grabs numero eleven, but the final
stanza twelve is Kotelnik in a good finish.
Then it goes to the official scorers that see it for
hometown St. Louis favorite to the unanimous tune of 116-112 across the
board - my unofficial scribble had it all square at 114-114 in points and
6-6 under round by round method that would still have Alexander retaining
the straps.
Post Scripts: Devon Alexander (21-0, 13 KOs)- while showing excellent speed
of hands and feet, works too much on emotion - not the banger to get away
with that alone. The “Brain trust”’ shouting next for Tim Bradley sounds
like a rush - kid needs maturing before stepping up to that level. The
“GREAT” sobriquet a bit of a stretch - the original “Alexander the Great”
conquered Greece, Persian Empire and Egypt but had an army doing the
fighting for him.
Andrea Kotelnik (31-4-1, 13 KOs) ~ age 32 - IBF #13, WBO
#7, WBA#15 pretty much tells rest of the story.
GEL
