In a battle between former champions, Devon Alexander stepped into the ring Saturday night against Victor Ortiz. In just his second fight following a two-year layoff, Alexander (27-4-1) looked sharp, swift and composed across the entertaining 12-round fight.
Working behind a nice job and constant two- and three-punch combinations, Alexander looked more like the Devon of old, the guy who held titles in the super lightweight and welterweight divisions, than the one that dropped three out of four fights before his two-year sabbatical. Though Ortiz (32-6-3) fought aggressively and gave a gallant effort, it was clear to nearly everyone watching that Devon was the victor.
However, boxing is a lot like politics in that oftentimes those charged with making the decisions don’t care what the people think. Case-in-point, despite putting forth his best all-around performance in years, Alexander got stuck with a miserable majority decision after two judges scored the bout even at 114-114 and the other scored it 115-113 for Ortiz.
I’m not sure how a judge found seven rounds to award to Ortiz. It’s not that Ortiz fought poorly, he simply was outperformed by Alexander. The St. Louis native routinely landed the cleaner, more impactful punches.
According to CompuBox, Alexander landed 155 out of 485 punches (35 percent) while Ortiz landed 137 out of 550 punches (25 percent). Furthermore, the hard-hitting Ortiz was battered and bruised after 12-rounds while Alexander barely showed evidence that he’d been in a fight.
“Devon was clearly robbed of the decision,” Kevin Cunningham, Alexander’s trainer, told BoxingScene.com. “Everybody that watched the fight had Devon winning except for the three judges.”
Many media outlets had Alexander winning big including ESPN.com (118-108) and CBS Sports (117-111). The headline over at RingTV.com aka The Bible of Boxing, read, “Devon Alexander Dominates Victor Ortiz But Held to Draw on Judges’ Scorecards.”
Alexander was disappointed, but not dejected by the decision.
“This was my first draw, and I hate it,” Alexander said after the bout. “It’s a bad feeling because I thought I won, but we’ll go back to the drawing board and get better.”
Though this wasn’t officially a title eliminator, many believed that the winner of Alexander vs Ortiz would be in line for a welterweight title fight. With the draw, the next move for each fighter is up in the air.
Both Alexander and Ortiz voiced that they would be open to a rematch to sort things out. However, Cunningham is looking past Ortiz in hopes of helping Alexander to reclaim a shiny strap around his waist.
All-Star success
The combined score of the 2017 NBA All-Star game totaled 374 points. You read that right. Two teams totaled nearly 400 points in a single basketball game.
Commissioner Adam Silver realized that the league needed to make a drastic change to the game’s format to keep people from changing the channel the following season. Therefore, the East vs West format was scrapped in favor of a schoolyard selection of players by LeBron James and Steph Curry, the two leading vote getters for the 2018 All-Star Game.
In addition to allowing team captains to choose their rosters (from the pool of All-Stars), the league initiated a few other changes to help incentivize the players to compete harder. The bonus’ for the winning team was bumped up to $100,000 (from $50,000 in previous years). The league also donated $350,000 to the charity of choice for the winning team versus just $150,000 for the losing squad.
Did the changes make a difference? Absolutely!
The league enjoyed its best and most-competitive All-Star game in several years when Team LeBron defeated Team Steph 148-145. I know what you’re thinking. That’s still a lot of points. However, it’s 81 less points that last year’s game. Also, if you dig deeper into the box score, the difference is evident.
In the 2017 All-Star Game, the West totaled zero blocks and the East totaled two rejections. This year, Team LeBron swatted three shots and Team Steph returned five shots back to the sender. This year, the players also racked up 24 free throw attempts versus just seven a season ago. Those numbers are a clear sign of more effort on the defensive end.
Watching the game was a great balance of what basketball between the world’s greatest players should be. There was still showmanship, such as when James bounced an alley oop pass hard off the floor to Anthony Davis and Victor Oladipo’s fast-break rock-a-bye reverse. But there was also defensive effort. There was no better example of the enhanced effort that the final play of the game, where Team LeBron smothered Curry and Co. as they frantically tried (and failed) to get off a shot to force overtime.
Quick notes on All-Star Weekend
- St. Louis’ own Bradley Beal had a solid showing for Team LeBron. Beal scored 14 points on 5-10 shooting in his first career All-Star Game.
- Jayson Tatum also gave a nice showing in the Rising Stars challenge, scoring 15 points and 4 rebounds for Team USA.
- Fergie got giggles and side-eyes for her attempt at a jazzy Star-Spangled Banner. It wasn’t as bad as I expected considering I saw the social media shade before I actually saw the performance.
- The Migos performance dry performance fell flat but the halftime show was saved by Pharrell and N.E.R.D., whose energy was off the charts.
- Dennis Smith Jr. was robbed. His 360 between-the-legs dunk was the best of the competition. His behind-the-head, between-the-legs reverse dunk might not have been a showstopper, but it was worth much more than the 39 that he was given.
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