By Chris Williams: Former WBO light welterweight champion Mike Alvarado (34-2, 23 KO’s) is looking forward to trying to beat 40-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez (55-7-1, 40 KO’s) in their fight on May 17th at the Forum in Inglewood, California. The winner of this fight will be facing the April 12th winner of the rematch between Manny Pacquiao and Tim Bradley.
While neither Marquez or Alvarado are ranked in the top 15 by the WBO at 147, they fight for the same promotional company Top Rank as Pacquiao and Bradley, so they’ll be getting a shot at the winner of the Pacquiao-Bradley fight based on that rather than by ranking. Both Marquez and Alvarado are coming off of losses, so technically neither of them are ideal candidates to be fighting for the WBO title, but boxing is kind of the Wild West where anything pretty much goes if you’re well connected.
“What a fight with such a reward – to fight the winner of Pacquiao vs. Bradley,” Alvarado said. This is an incredible opportunity.”
Instead of the winner of the Marquez-Alvarado fight getting to face the Bradley-Pacquiao winner, it should be the guy that easily beat Alvarado last year in Ruslan Provodnikov. He probably deserves a title shot against Pacquiao or Bradley more than Alvarado or Marquez. It would be a win-win situation no matter which fighter Provodnikov fought. If he fought Pacquiao, boxing fans would get a chance to see him fight someone he’s never fought before in Provodnikov. I think that would be a better deal than to have Marquez fight Pacquiao for a 5th time.
That’s just too many times for my tastes. Let someone else get a chance why don’t you. If Provodnikov faces Bradley again, it would be a great fight for boxing fans to see if Provodnikov can avenge his loss to Bradley from last year. That would be a much better fight than potentially seeing Alvarado or Marquez fight Pacquiao or Bradley.
I don’t want to see Alvarado in with Pacquiao because there would be no suspense at all. You know who would win that fight, as it would be an even easier fight than Pacquiao’s recent win over Brandon Rios. I suspect Bob Arum of Top Rank is keeping his fingers cross hoping that Alvarado doesn’t beat Marquez because he’s got to know that the pay-per-view buys would be incredibly low if Alvarado winds up fighting Bradley or Pacquiao on HBO PPV. Who would want to see those fights?
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