Q&A: Alexander says his fight with Maidana is worth the weight

Former WBC/IBF junior welterweight titleholder Devon Alexander has a message for hard-hitting Marcos Maidana heading into their welterweight clash on Feb. 25 at the Scottrade Center in Alexander's hometown of St. Louis, Mo: Don't expect him to run.

A southpaw boxer-puncher, Alexander (22-1, 13 knockouts) cited weight-cutting issues among his reasons for rising into the 147-pound category to face Maidana (31-2, 28 KOs), an Argentinian who has had trouble with skillful fighters in the past. 

Alexander lost his WBC junior welterweight belt following an 11th-round technical decision loss to unbeaten Tim Bradley in January of last year, but bounced back with a 10-round decision win over hard-hitting Lucas Matthysse of Argentina in June.

Before facing Bradley, Alexander struggled through a decision over former titleholder Andriy Kotelnik in August of 2009, and claimed that extreme weight loss contributed to what he considers to have been sub-par efforts against Kotelnik, Bradley and Matthysse.

Going in with a record of 25-0, Maidana suffered the first loss of his career to Kotelnik, who outpointed him by narrow split decision in 2009. His only other loss was by close unanimous decision against Amir Khan in December of 2010, in which Maidana had to rise from a first-round knockdown.

Maidana is coming off a fourth-round knockout of Peter Petrov in September, his second straight win since losing to Khan.

Maidana's own countryman, Matthysse, thinks of him as "ordinary."

Maidana and Alexander share another common opponent in southpaw DeMarcus Corley, against whom Alexander scored a unanimous decision victory in January of 2008, while Maidana did the same in August 2010.

Alexander shared his thoughts on the match up with Maidana, below.

RingTV.com: How much are you looking forward to this fight as vindication?

Devon Alexander: I'm naturally looking forward to this, because, stylistically, this is going to be an action-packed fight. It's going to be an awesome fight. We already know what Maidana is going to do. We already know that.

We know that he's going to come forward and to try to take my head off. So, I know what I have to prepare for. But at 147, I'm going to be throwing with power too. I ain't going to be shoe shining.

RingTV.com: How much did the fight with Matthysse help you for this one against Maidana?

DA: With the Lucas Matthysse fight, I didn't follow the game plan at all, and I was getting hit unnecessarily because my legs weren't in the positions that they were supposed to be in.

Just the movement and the energy weren't there. I was getting hit too much. The Matthysse fight definitely taught me a lot. I'm glad I had that fight before the Maidana fight.