By Dan Ambrose: I like the October 13th match-up between unbeaten light welterweight contender Mike Alvarado (33-0, 23 KO’s) and former WBA World lightweight champion Brandon Rios (30-0-1, 22 KO’s). This is going to be a really good test for both of these fighters, as neither of them has been fully battle tested as of yet.

Alvarado, 32, did have two tough fights against Breidis Prescott and Maurcio Herrera, but he was able to take control of those fights based on his superior size and conditioning to win. Prescott gave Alvarado a lot of problems with his power and his jab early in the fight. But Prescott completely ran out of gas in the 10th round and was stopped in a fight that he could have won had he stayed on his feet and made it to the end of the round.

Rios was full of excuses recently after winning a controversial 12 round split decision against Richard Abril last April. Rios was thoroughly out-boxed by the Cuban Abril and looked like he had won maybe two rounds at most when the fight was over. However, two of the judges gave Rios the win. Afterwards, I don’t think Rios was fully prepared for the great many boxing fans that felt that he should have lost the fight. He later said that he had problems making weight and that left him weak for the fight.

Okay, so now Rios has moved up to 140, so there should in theory be any more excuses from Rios about battling the weight. However, there is only five pounds difference between lightweight and light welterweight, so if Rios was having problems making the lightweight limit of 135, you can guess he’ll have equally big problems trying to squeeze down from the 150s to make 140. He’s just a big guy that probably should be fighting at welterweight at this point and not light welterweight. But with the sanctioning bodies not having rehydration limits that keep fighters from taking advantage of the system, we get fighters like Rios who melts down from up high to fight at the lighter weights. Alvarado probably starts even heavier than Rios, so he’ll still be the bigger fighter on October 13th, and that’s going to be a new experience for Rios because he’s usually the bigger guy in his fights.