Devon Alexander (Mark Buckner, Hoganphotos/Golden Boy Promotions)Devon Alexander has a sterling record and a prime position on HBO. On Saturday, he'll face power-punching Marcos Maidana in his welterweight debut at the Scottrade Center in his hometown of St. Louis, competing in yet another main event on HBO.

But as his bout nears, Alexander has had to fend off suggestions from Maidana's camp that he's a PED user, as well as suggestions from the media that, at 25 years old and with a 23-1 record, he's yesterday's news.

He told ESPN.com's Kieran Mulvaney that he was struggling to make the super lightweight limit of 140 pounds and it may have contributed to a subpar 2011, in which he lost to Timothy Bradley in a title unification fight and then looked less than impressive in a win over Lucas Matthysse.

He knows he needs to come up big on Saturday, or he may be relegated to second-tier status.

It's very important. People forget how good I am. People forget about how good I looked when I stopped [Juan] Urango and [Junior] Witter, and even before that.

Long before he became the most powerful man in mixed martial arts, UFC president Dana White was a boxing fan. On Tuesday during the "UFC Tonight" show on Fuel TV, White laid into superstar boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.

White called Mayweather racist for Mayweather's comments on Twitter about New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin. He also blasted Mayweather for failing to sign to fight Manny Pacquiao and said a 50/50 purse split, as Pacquiao has demanded, is the most logical move.

Don't worry about what all these other guys are doing and shooting your big mouth off on Twitter. What you should worry about is getting in there and making the fight that all the boxing fans want to see. Get in there and fight Manny Pacquiao. You don't deserve more of the purse. If ever there were a fight in history that should be split 50/50, it's the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight. Shut up! Both of you split the money up and put on the fight that everybody, including me, wants to see.

Mayweather commented about Lin on his Twitter account on Feb. 13. He didn't really rip Lin, as numerous sites have alleged, but simply said that Lin is getting a lot of hype because of his race and that African-American players don't receive a comparable amount of hype.

Mayweather comments on Lin's popularity

As the controversy was beginning to die down, White stirred it up again by ripping Mayweather on a segment called, "Presidential Address." Fuel put White's face in what appeared to be the presidential seal for the commentary.

Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner (Getty)

Few athletes in history have had the impact upon their sport, and the world, that Muhammad Ali has had upon his. Once Ali became the world heavyweight champion, pretty much every fight he had for the rest of his illustrious career became an event, not just a sporting contest.

Leon Spinks, the 1976 Olympic gold medalist who is the only man to have beaten Ali when Ali entered the bout as the defending champion, told Steve Carp of the Las Vegas Review-Journal that "it was an honor to fight" Ali. Hard-hitting Earnie Shavers called Ali "the nice guy in the world," but said fighting him was different than fighting anyone else.

Shavers said he respected Ali so much that he wasn't 100 percent committed to winning.

"Ali was the nicest guy in the world. When I fought Ali, I had mixed feelings. I wanted to win. But there was a small part of me that didn't want to beat him. That's how much respect I had for Ali."

Many boxing dignitaries, including former opponents Spinks, Shavers, George Foreman,