By Ian S Palmer
Thirty-eight-year-old Randall Bailey will be defending his IBF Welterweight Title for the first time on Oct. 20 in Brooklyn, New York when he meets 25-year-old Devon Alexander, the former WBC and IBF junior welterweight belt holder. Bailey, who hails from Miami, Florida, won his title back in June when knocked out Mike Jones in the 11th round. It was Jones first loss as a pro and he was well ahead on the scorecards when the fight was stopped.
Bailey has a record of 43-7 with 37 knockouts while Alexander of St. Louis, Missouri is 23-1 and has 13 knockouts. As you can see by their records there’s quite a big difference in knockout power with Bailey being one of the hardest hitters in boxing and Alexander having average power at best. The key to this fight will be Alexander’s ability to take a punch.
He’s fought big hitters before and stood up to them pretty well. This includes winning a unanimous decision over power-punching Marco Maidana and a split decision over another hard-hitting Argentinean in Lucas Matthysse. However, Matthysse did drop the American in the fourth round of their bout, but he survived and won a controversial decision.
Alexander made his pro boxing debut in 2004. Five years later he was the WBC junior welterweight titleholder after Junior Witter quit in the eighth round of their championship bout because of a hand injury. Alexander then stopped Juan Urango in the eighth round to win the IBF title. He defended the belts against Andriy Kotelnyk with a unanimous decision, but lost them against WBO champ Timothy Bradley during a title unification match. It was one of Alexander’s worst showings as a pro and he lost by technical decision in the 10th round. Alexander hasn’t been at his best in the past three fights other than looking pretty good against Maidana.
Bailey turned pro in 1996 and has lost bouts to Diosbelys Hurtado, Ener Julio, Ishe smith, DeMarcus Corley, Herman Ngoudjo, Miguel Cotto, and Urango. He was stopped in three of those bouts with the other losses coming by way of decision. The last time he was beaten was in 2009 when he was knocked out in the 1th round by Urango.
Even though he’s got a lot of experience, Bailey seems to struggle when he takes on elite fighters, which is what Alexander is. Bailey also won a world title in 1999 when he knocked out Carlos Gonzalez in the first round and captured the WBO junior welterweight championship. He managed two title defences and lost the belt in 2000 when Julio beat him by a split decision.
It appears that Bailey’s best chance to win this fight is to simply overpower Alexander. However, it might be hard to catch up with the younger and faster boxer. As Bailey proved against Jones though, he’s never out of a fight until the final bell rings, no matter what the scorecards say. If Alexander’s chin deserts him, then Bailey will knock him out, but if the challenger can stand up to him, he’ll take Bailey’s belt at the end of the night. Look for the latter to happen.
