by David P. Greisman

In HBO's televised main event, Marcos Maidana and Devon Alexander will face each other in a welterweight main event, which is scheduled for ten rounds.

John Scully (Maidana): “I think I’ll go with Maidana. My gut feeling is that Alexander might be in a little bit of a rut. I just like Maidana’s power. A lot of the luster was taken off of Alexander, and I think mentally that might affect him. He seems like the type of guy, he really enjoyed the status he had, and now that that’s been stripped away, and to come back right away with a guy like Maidana, I think maybe it might’ve been too big of a fight too soon for him. I see a decision. Devon’s still a good fighter. He’s cagey enough and slick enough to get through the rounds.”

Ronnie Shields (Alexander): “I think Maidana is made to order for Devon Alexander. Here’s a guy who comes right to you. He doesn’t know any other way to fight. He’s not a boxer. He’s just a straight-ahead kind of guy who can punch. But Alexander, he has good moves, he’s a good boxer, he can circle you both ways and still get punches off. That being the case, it’s going to be hard for Maidana to hit him with anything, because Alexander is a busy fighter and is always in shape, so he can go the 12 rounds. That shouldn’t be a problem with him.

“With boxing ability, with angles, I just think that he’s going to keep Maidana off-guard. I’m going to say Devon Alexander by unanimous decision, especially with Devon being at home. That’s hard to beat a guy, as [Lamont] Peterson proved. You just get that extra 15 or 20 percent of confidence that you need, being at home, when everybody’s behind you. That means a lot these days in boxing, especially for the younger guys coming up.”

Henry Ramirez (Maidana): “That’s an interesting fight. Obviously if Devon can box and keep Maidana away, then you got to favor Devon. But obviously Maidana keeps coming, a power puncher. I’m actually going with Maidana. I’m going to pick Maidana to wear him down and stop him late. To me, Devon has shown some real vulnerability, especially lately. He faded with the Lucas Matthysse fight. Bradley seemed like he wanted to fight more than he did. I even thought he lost to Kotelnik. You could say that he lost his last three fights, to be honest.

“And Maidana’s fight with Amir Khan was a helluva fight. He showed some real grit getting up from that tremendous body shot that Amir Khan landed. I just think that with pressure, and constantly coming, coming, coming, that he’s going to wear down Devon Alexander. I don’t know if Devon will be able to land something hard enough to get Maidana’s respect. Especially in the early rounds, I expect it to be Devon winning pretty handily, but as the fight progresses and Maidana gets going, I’m curious to see if Devon can keep him off for 12 rounds.”

Eddie Mustafa Muhammad (Alexander): “Devon will out-point him easy. He can outbox Maidana. It’s going to be a really good fight. Maidana is going to put a lot of pressure on him. Devon’s moved up to 147 pounds, but Devon is a good boxer, and he’s just going to outbox Maidana, hit him with all kinds of combinations, and step around. As long as he doesn’t go straight back with Maidana, Devon should beat him easy — and he’s fighting in his hometown.”

David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Follow David on Twitter at twitter.com/fightingwords2 or on Facebook at facebook.com/fightingwordsboxing, or send questions and comments to fightingwords1@gmail.com