5000 tickets sold for Alvarado-Rios II fight at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada

By Boxing News - 03/28/2013 - Comments

alvarado22By Eric Thomas: Saturday’s rematch between Brandon Rios (31-0-1, 23 KO’s) and Mike Alvarado (33-1, 23 KO’s) has already sold 5000 tickets, according to Dan Rafael for their HBO televised fight at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. The Mandalay Bay is set to hold 6000 fans, and so there are still tickets available to be purchased for the fight.

The two fighters went at it last October with Rios stopping Alvarado in the 7th round in a war. Their promoter Bob Arum wanted to put them back together due to how exciting the fight was, and perhaps also because Arum really doesn’t have a lot of other options for either of them to fight due to the small size of his Top Rank stable and his habit of preferring to put on in house Top Rank fights rather than matching his fighters against guys from other promotional stables.

If Rios loses this fight then it’s almost guaranteed that Arum will put him back in with Alvarado because he can’t let Rios move on with him having been beaten because Arum wants to match him against his other top welterweights Tim Bradley, Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez.

If Alvarado loses, then Arum will be looking to put him in with Ruslan Provodnikov, the fighter that just finished losing to Bradley by a 12 round decision earlier this month.

Rios says he’s 99% certain the fight will be just like the last one with Alvarado choosing to slug it out with him instead of using his height and reach advantage to box from the outside. As for Alvarado, he says he’s going to fight differently by being smart, but he doesn’t look confident like he’s going to be able to resist getting into a war with Rios.

Rios acknowledges that Alvarado is a good boxer, and feels that may even be a better boxer than himself. However, he doesn’t see Alvarado as a great boxer, and for that reason he sees himself winning the fight again and moving on to the more lucrative fights.



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