By Allan Fox: #1 WBO 140 lb. contender Ruslan Provodnikov (22-2, 15 KO’s) intends on making it a war against interim WBO light welterweight champion Mike Alvarado (34-1, 23 KO’s) in a little less than 2 weeks on October 19th at the 1STBANK Center, Broomfield, in Denver, Colorado, USA.
Provodnikov figures that the only way that the 33-year-old Alvarado will be able to beat him in this fight is if he stops him, because he plans on getting in his face and turning the fight into a pure war.
Alvarado seems to have to other ideas about the fight saying that he plans on using both his boxing and brawling against Provodnikov. Alvarado’s not going to stand in front of the Russian fighter for 12 rounds and look to KO him with every shot the way that he used to fight.
Alvarado has learned from grueling fights against Brandon Rios, Breidis Prescott and Mauricio Herrera that he’s much better off when he’s mixing his boxing and slugging than when he’s just looking to slug it out.
Provodnkov told HBO “It’s not going to be about technique – it’s simply war. It’s just going to be a street fight. I promise you that…I’m not afraid to lose. For Mike to win the fight, he has to knock me out. There’s no other way. I will go to the church and light a candle for Mike. I’m going to pray that he doesn’t get hurt during the fight.”
Provodnikov will have to work on cutting down the ring because Alvarado surely use movement in this fight to try and limit the amount of power shots that he gets hit with. Alvarado doesn’t have the ability to absorb punishment for 12 rounds like some fighters do, so he’s going to use movement like he did in his last fight against Rios last March.
Alvarado won that fight by staying on the outside, jabbing and then coming forward to throw quick combinations. Rios was too slow to time Alvarado and he failed to his jab the way he had earlier in the fight when he staggered him with a jab.
It’s reasonable to assume that Alvarado can beat Provodnikov by a decision because Provodnikov has questionable stamina and he’s not good at cutting off the ring against his opponents.
In his 12 round decision loss to WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley last March, Provodnikov badly struggled when Bradley started using movement in the middle of the fight. That’s the sole reason why Provodnikov lost. He couldn’t cut off the ring properly and he did a poor job of timing Bradley.
A good fighter would have waited until came forward and hit him with a hard shot, but Provodnikov looked unable to time Bradley and ended up giving away too many crucial rounds that way.
Alvarado no doubt has seen the Bradley-Provodnikov fight many times, so he’s going to use that as the template in how to fight the Russian.
If Alvarado does decide to go toe-to-toe with Provodnikov then this fight will be a toss-up because Alvarado doesn’t take shots, and his face swells up face when he starts to get hit a lot.
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