Alex Bray Cruises Past Rodrigo Damian Coria by UD

Alex Bray kept it neat and sensible at the Caribe Royale in Orlando, doing exactly what was required and not a great deal more, as he boxed his way to a clear ten-round decision over the Argentine southpaw Rodrigo Damian Coria in the main event of Boxlab Promotions’ “Night of Champions XIV”. It was the sort of controlled performance that rarely gets a crowd out of its seats, but it does get a young fighter home with his health intact and his record moving in the right direction.

Coria came to work, plodding forward behind the classic left-hander’s posture, shoulders angled, trying to draw Bray into a close-range fight. The problem, from the first bell, was that Bray didn’t give him the sort of targets you need when you’re the shorter man walking through the front door. Bray, a long 6ft 3in at junior middleweight, kept the distance with a steady lead hand and a calm pair of feet, then punctuated the gaps with quick, straight punches and the occasional uppercut as Coria dipped in.

There were moments when Coria found Bray’s midsection, mainly when he accepted a shot to get close enough to throw, but they were scraps of success rather than a pattern. Bray’s best work came when he let Coria do the advancing and met him with short counters, scoring without drama, and then stepping away before Coria could turn it into an exchange. It was, in truth, one-way traffic in terms of who was dictating terms, even if Bray rarely looked as though he was trying to force a finish.

If you were waiting for Bray to open up and put his foot down, you waited a long time. The pace stayed measured, almost deliberately restrained, as though he had decided early that the safest route to a win was the one with the fewest moving parts. Between rounds, it felt less like a fighter searching for answers and more like a young man sticking rigidly to them, keeping Coria at the end of his reach, picking spots, and making sure the southpaw’s counters didn’t land clean.

Coria’s best chance, as it often is for an underdog who can’t win the long-range battle, was to roughen it up, crowd Bray, and force him to fight on the inside. He tried, but he couldn’t keep Bray there for long. Bray would score, step off, and reset. Coria would set off again, only to find the same problem waiting for him: Bray’s height, Bray’s reach, and Bray’s refusal to be hurried into anything careless.

The scorecards told the story of a contest that never truly turned: all three judges had Bray ahead by 100-90, 99-91, and 97-93. The wide card reflected Bray’s consistency, round after round. At the same time, the 97-93 suggested Coria nicked his share with body work and moments of initiative, even if he never looked likely to change the direction of the fight. Bray improved to 11-0 with eight knockouts, and Coria, game but outgunned, was left to trudge back to his corner having spent most of the night trying to solve a riddle written in inches.

There will be sterner nights than this for Bray, and he will have to show more gears when they arrive, but there was sense in what he did here. He spoke afterwards about not wanting a repeat of being caught by shots he felt he didn’t need to take last time out, and this performance was a direct answer to that, cautious, disciplined, and professional. On a night billed as Bray fighting Coria for a WBA Continental Latin American title opportunity, it was less a statement than a tidy piece of business, but tidy business has carried plenty of young fighters a long way.

Alex Bray looked every inch the 19-year-old junior middleweight built like he’s nicked someone else’s frame, 6ft 3in at 154lbs, and you could see straight away he wasn’t about to waste it by getting dragged into a messy southpaw fight with Rodrigo Damian Coria. He fought like a kid who’d learned his lesson from the Espino blow-out, plenty of control, not much risk. The feet were the story for me. Bray kept edging off the line, taking that half-step back and to the side, and he made Coria reset every time the Argentine tried to shuffle in. When Coria did finally get close, it was usually to tap the body, and Bray answered with the kind of short uppercuts and straight shots that don’t look spectacular but make the come-forward fighter think twice.

I’m not going to dress it up; Coria did very little to earn those rounds. No feints, no real ring cutting, just following Bray around like a man hoping the other bloke would stand still out of boredom. Bray obliged him by pot-shotting, banking rounds, and letting the rounds run out. The judges had it wide, 100-90, 99-91 and 97-93, and there was no robbery in that. But if Bray wants people to talk about him as more than “the tall prospect on the Boxlab YouTube shows,” he’s got to add a bit of spite, sit down on the right hand, and learn to make a man pay when he’s walking forward with his guard glued to his cheeks. Tall at 154 reminds people of Fundora, but Fundora throws; Bray’s got to start doing the same.