Alexander faces Bradley in rare all-American title bout

Americans Devon Alexander and Timothy Bradley will put their 140-pound belts on the line Saturday night from the Silverdome outside of Detroit in the best match of the early year. Bradley has opened as the -185 favorite on Bodog with Alexander at +155.

WBO champion Bradley (26-0, 11 KOs), 27, has made four title defenses since going to England and dethroning Junior Witter on points in May 2008. In his second defense, Bradley unified belts with a decision against Kendall Holt but was later stripped of one of them for taking a fight other than one of his mandatory defenses.

WBC champion Alexander (21-0, 13 KOs), 23, stopped Witter in the eighth round to win a vacant title — the one stripped from Bradley — in August 2008 and has made two defenses. In his first defense, Alexander scored an eighth-round knockout of Juan Urango to unify belts and then scored a tight unanimous decision against Andriy Kotelnik in August. Like Bradley, Alexander was stripped of one of his belts because he opted to face Bradley instead of making a mandatory defense for a fraction of the money he will make against Bradley.

Bradley and Alexander will become only the third pair of undefeated American fighters to face each other in a unification fight, and the first in 24 years. The other two: Mike Tyson (then 30-0) against Tony Tucker (34-0) in a 1987 heavyweight championship unification bout, and Donald Curry (23-0) against Milton McCrory (27-0-1) in a 1985 welterweight unification clash.

The Alexander-Bradley winner will also stake his claim to being the best in a deep 140-pound weight class that also includes such notable fighters as titleholder Amir Khan, former titlist Zab Judah, Marcos Maidana and Victor Ortiz.

The winner Saturday could earn a shot at fighting one of the two biggest names in the sport, Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather. One promoter said he wants the Bradley-Alexander winner to fight the other junior-welterweight champ, England’s Amir Khan, at Staples Center in the summer. HBO is hyping Saturday’s battle of unbeatens as a launching pad to a series of major bouts in the sport’s most gifted division.

If you are wondering why the fight is being held in the vacant Superdome, it’s because cnce the fight was made, both camps said they would not fight in the other’s home town — Palm Springs for Bradley or St. Louis for Alexander. Searching for a venue, Bradley’s promoter Gary Shaw explored several urban areas with a high African-American population, which included New Orleans, Washington D.C. and Atlanta.

They settled on the Silverdome, the former home of the Detroit Lions. The 70,000-seat arena will be reconfigured for boxing and will have a capacity of 10,000-15,000 fans.

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