Devon Alexander v Shawn Porter

Every so often in this sport we get a challenger who is just so determined that they refuse to be denied of a victory. We saw one such fight earlier this year when Kiko Martinez broke down Jhonathan Romero with nothing short of sheer bloodymindedness.

we saw another fighter with that same desire to win earlier tonight as Shawn Porter (23-0-1, 14) took on IBF Welterweight champion Devon Alexander (25-2, 14) and literally took the fight to Alexander and refused to let Alexander fight back.

Whilst the first round was messy with Alexander getting his jab going and tying Porter up the second round saw Porter coming to life. By round 3 Porter was literally beating up the champion, he was getting inside, unloading on the champion and connecting with left hands. He not only connected cleanly on Alexander but several times he appeared to have Alexander ready to go down. The only thing keeping Alexander upright was the fact he held on to Porter at every opportunity getting a warning as a result.

Due to the domination in round 3 by Porter it wasn't out of the question to have given that round as a 10-8 to Porter who looked well on the way to forcing an early ending to the bout.

Porter's domination of the bout continued through the following rounds. Again he shook Alexander in rounds 4, 5 and 6. When Alexander try to hold he was merely pushed off and beaten up, when there was distance Porter was landing booming shots, often in combinations and by the end of the sixth Alexander was cut and looking like a man ready to lose his title.

By the midway point of the bout it seemed Alexander had just one hope, that Porter would punch himself out. Unfortunately for Alexander this did happen and instead Porter started beating Alexander with the jab. When this started to happen it was clear that Alexander had no way back in to this bout. He was being beaten on the inside, he was being beaten on the outside and he was just being beaten up.

For poor Alexander, whose right eye was cut, it wasn't just the headshots that Porter was connecting with but also body shots as he began to break up every part of Alexander. The only saving grace, if you can call it that, was that a headclash in round 9 opened up a nasty cut on Porter. Unfortunately the cut simply didn't bother Porter who continued to press the fight with relentless aggression.

Porter, who was well up going in to the championship rounds, seem to refuse to cruise the final rounds and instead continued to beat up Alexande as he made sure he took the decision.

Surprisingly, despite the dominance of Porter the three judges had the fight remarkably close with cards of 115-113 and two of 116-112. Sorry but those judges need question, Porter possible lost 2 rounds, not 4 or 5 as the judges had it.