By Dan Ambrose: Undefeated light welterweight contender Mike Alvarado (32-0, 23 KO’s) will be battling #7 IBF contender Mauricio Herrera (18-1, 7 KO’s) in a scheduled 10 round bout on April 14th on the undercard of the Brandon Rios vs. Yuriorkis Gamboa fight at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.

The Alvarado-Herrera fight will be the first fight of the night on the card and it’s still unknown if it will make it on television. My guess is no.

This is a decent fight but still not the big fight that the 31-year-old Alvarado has been looking for. He’s aging and he can’t afford to waste too much time before ages out. Alvarado had to rally to stop Breidis Prescott in the 10th round last November. It’s nice that Alvarado was able to score a knockout to defeat an exhausted Prescott but it’s not a sign that he was completely out-boxed by Prescott through most of the fight and took a serious pounding in that fight. Let’s be real about this: If Prescott doesn’t tire out and lean all over Alvarado to let him hit him with uppercuts, Prescott wins that fight easy. Alvarado has got too many flaws and he needs major improvements to beat the better fighters in the division.

Herrera, also 31, has won his last five fights since losing an eight round split decision to Mike Anchondo in December 2009. He’s beaten some good fighters since then, defeating Efren Hinojosa, Hector Alatorre, Ruslan Provodnikov and Mike Dallas Jr. However, Herrera doesn’t have much in the way of power and hasn’t fought since June of last year when he barely beat Dallas Jr. I think he’ll have problems with the power of Alvarado and will likely lose a decision. I can’t see Alvarado stopping Herrera but I do see him landing enough big shots to pull out a decision. Both of these guys are so flawed that I can’t see them winning major titles.