Torres vs. Alvarado On February 16th

World Boxing Organization light welterweight champion Ricardo Torres (32-1, 28 KOs) will be defending his title on February 16th against unbeaten challenger Mike Alvarado (19-0, 13 KOs) at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevado. Torres, 27, recently was involved in a questionable 11th round TKO of challenger Kendall Holt on September 1st, a bout in which the referee Genero Rodriguez stopped the bout shortly after Holt was dropped to the canvas. However, Holt was still punching at the time and appeared to be okay.

Afterwards, Holt appealed the stoppage with the WBO, but the ruling failed to reverse the victory for Torres. Holt, naturally, asked for a rematch and it seemed like the logical thing to do for Torres would be to give him a rematch, so that he could wipe out any doubt in anyone’s mind about the stoppage. However, instead of deciding to fight Holt again, Torres has decided on Alvarado, apparently one of Top Rank’s young stars. Another young and rising star in the junior welterweight division, Victor Ortiz, was mentioned but Torres decided on the less dangerous Alvarado instead.

However, the fight is no gimme for Torres, as Alvarado is highly skilled, and has tons of power, though not anything like the kind of power that Torres posses. If he can avoid being knocked out or dropped, Alvarado has a real chance of pulling off an upset. Torres is an average boxer, and depends solely on his monstrous knockout power to pull out victories from the jaws of defeat. This bout figures to be no different than any of the others, except that Alvarado is making a huge step up and may find that he’s in way over his head at this stage in his young career.