After winning a decision against Lucas Matthysse last month that many watching felt should have gone the other way, former light welterweight champion Devon Alexander is apparently now in the process of climbing up to welterweight, and has set his sights firmly on Paulie Malignaggi as a debut opponent.
Why Alexander and his team decided to move up to 147lbs given that there are still numerous interesting fights to be had at 140lbs at first glance appears slightly puzzling.
He didn’t appear to have any trouble making the light welterweight limit, was far from clearing out the decision and isn’t that likely to land any really huge fights at welterweight without a series of solid wins behind him first.
One of the main reasons for Alexander wanting to move up though could have a lot to do with his recent close run win over Lucas Matthysse.
Clearly the fight was, if not a robbery, close enough that the decision could have gone either way.
Even fighting exclusively in and around St. Louis, there are only so many of those kinds of fights that Alexander can go through without picking up losses.
And given that 140lbs is likely the deepest in the sport right now, for the time being those are exactly the kinds of fights he would need to take.
After July 23rd either Zab Judah or Amir Khan will hold both the IBF and WBA titles.
Neither is likely to want to give a fighter with relatively little drawing power and a habit of snatching close decisions a shot at their titles, especially given his last few performances. More than likely the winner will first look to unifying all four titles against Tim Bradley.
Bradley and Alexander of course have already fought, and aside from the fact that the latter was beaten soundly, the fight was an ugly affair that bombed in terms of ratings for HBO.
