IBF Welterweight champion Randall Bailey will not defend his title this Saturday against Devon Alexander as Bailey injured his back.
“With this one, it’s particularly frustrating because we’re dealing with a guy who has been (difficult) through the whole negotiating process,” Alexander’s manager/trainer Kevin Cunningham told ESPN.com. “He got the money he wanted. We had a date for the fight on Aug. 25 and he said he couldn’t be ready and to make it in September and he would be ready. So we pushed our date back. He wanted to dictate where the fight was going to be held. He wanted it to be in Las Vegas and refused to fight in St. Louis (Alexander’s hometown), so the fight was in Vegas.
“He got the money, the date and the site, and then a week before the fight, he pulled out with this back injury. I don’t think the guy is injured, to be honest with you. I just don’t think he wasn’t ready.”
“We’re still evaluating our options, whether to go forward with what we can or cancel everything. It’s all very new,” said Showtime’s Stephen Espinoza. “I’d like to save the event if at all possible, mainly because it’s so hard on the fighters who have been training for months. We’re working hard to find options that would allow us to save the show.”
“He might have been stuck in celebration mode longer than he should have been and when he looked up and realized the fight with Devon was a week away, he came up with a back injury because he knew he wasn’t ready. That’s what I think,” Cunningham said. “Devon is pissed. He has been training since June.
“Find us another opponent,” Cunningham said. “My kid is at his peak and ready to fight. Randall Bailey is an idiot. I think he’s jerking everybody around. We bent over backwards to make this fight with Randall Bailey happen and he comes up with excuses.”
Said Espinoza, “I’d love to find a replacement opponent for Devon, but given that Devon is an elite welterweight, it is unlikely that we will be able find a legitimate opponent willing to take the fight on short notice.”
