Mike Alvarado in the running for Marquez bout on July 14th

By Boxing News - 04/16/2012 - Comments

Image: Mike Alvarado in the running for Marquez bout on July 14thBy Eric Thomas: With the mess that Brandon Rios made in his last fight against Richard Abril last Saturday, Rios may have fought his way out of a big money career opportunity against Juan Manuel Marquez on July 14th at the Cowboys Stadium.

Although Rios won the fight against Abril, the win wasn’t convincing enough to where boxing fans are ready to see Rios be rewarded with a fight against Marquez. It’s like getting a D on a test and then being given an expensive award by your family like a new car.

Instead of Rios getting the July 14th fight against Marquez, the fight could end up going to unbeaten Mike Alvarado (33-0, 23 KO’s) by virtue of Alvarado’s impressive 10 round decision win over Mauricio Herrera last weekend in their exciting fight on the undercard of Abril-Rios. Alvarado really impressed in that fight by throwing a lot of shots and looking powerful.

According to boxing news from Dan Rafael, Alvarez is one of the names that’s being mentioned to face Marquez instead of Rios. That could be a much tougher fight for Marquez compared to Rios, because Alvarado is really hard to beat due to his excellent power and ability to throw a ton of punches like he did last weekend against Herrera.

The only question that I could come up with for an Alvarado vs. Marquez fight is if Marquez would be willing to accept a fight against Alvarado instead of a better known opponent. I think it’s a no win situation for Marquez if he takes the Alvarado fight. If he faces him, Marquez will take a lot of punishment in winning the fight due to Alvarado’s power and high work rate. But at the same time, Marquez won’t get a lot from beating him because Alvarado is still an unknown and perhaps two or three years away from being an established fighter that the casual boxing fans know about.

By then, Marquez will be long gone, and it’s obviously not going to be an option. Alvarado, 31, is going to have to make his own trail to the top because Marquez won’t give him a boost up by agreeing to fight him, even if Bob Arum would like Marquez to do this. The 5’9″ Alvarado would have a size advantage over the 5’7″ Marquez, and while this still wouldn’t translate into a victory for the limited slugger Alvarado, he’d give Marquez a run for his money and punish him a lot in losing the fight to him. But there would be no upside in Marquez taking the fight.



Comments are closed.