By Dan Ambrose: Unbeaten light welterweight contender Mike Alvarado (33-0, 23 KO’s) really likes his chances against the weight-plagued former WBA World lightweight champion Brandon Rios (30-0-1, 22 KO’s) in their big fight on October 13th on HBO at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California.

Alvarado said to RingTV “I don’t think Brandon will be able to counter my power and my boxing skills together. S I think that within six or seven rounds, I should have Brandon out of that ring.”

Rios, 5’8″, is slightly shorter than the 5’9′ Alvarado, but both fighters have the identical teach of 68″. The only difference that I can see between the two fighters is that Alvarado appears to be the bigger fighter in terms of his frame, the stronger puncher, and the guy with the better work rate. However, Alvarado takes a lot of punishment in his fights and he’s someone that can struggle if you’ve got the firepower to compete with him. Breidis Prescott was beating Alvarado last November until running out of gas and getting stopped in the 10th and final round. Had Prescott survived the round, he would have won the fight.

Alvarado also had a lot of problems beating Mauricio Herrera by a 10 round decision last April in a back and forth type fight. I rate Rios above both Prescott and Herrera in terms of ability to punch and take a good shot. What I don’t know is whether Rios will be able to fight hard enough for 12 rounds to beat a guy like Alvarado.

Rios has serious question marks about him after winning a highly controversial 12 round split decision over Richard Abril last April. Rios believes he deserved to get the win, but pretty much the entire world, apart from two of the three judges, saw Rios getting soundly beaten. If this were Rios’ only poor performance then it wouldn’t be so much an issue, but he looked just as bad in his win over John Murray last December. Rios won the fight by an 11th round TKO, but looked very beatable against a small and slow lightweight.