By Chris Williams: In a fight that really should be scheduled as the main event instead of the co-main event, former WBA World lightweight champion Brandon Rios (30-0-1, 22 KO’s) will be stepping up in weight to the light welterweight division to fight unbeaten contender Mike Alvarado (33-0, 23 KO’s) in a WBO light welterweight title eliminator at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California.

Presumably, the winner of this fight will be soon getting a shot against WBO light welterweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez. Don’t count on it happen, though. I’m sure Top Rank promoter Bob Arum would love to put Alvarado or Rios in with Marquez for his WBO belt in 2013, but I bet Marquez won’t go for it unless he’s offered a lot of money. Going from the big, big payday Marquez will be getting for the Pacquiao fight on December 8th to a much smaller payday against Rios or Alvarado will likely be a serious buzzkill for Marquez. I bet he vacates and leaves the winner of the Rios-Alvarado fight with no one to fight except someone like Ruslan Provodikov. I bet they can’t to fight him in a fight that few boxing will even care about.

I’m getting a little off track here by looking forward too much. Anyway, the weird thing about the Rios-Alvarado fight is it’s placement on the undercard of the Nonito Donaire vs. Toshiaki Nishioka fight. There’s honestly not a whole of interest in that match-up because only the hardcore boxing fans have ever seen Nishioka fight. His name doesn’t register at all with casual boxing fans. For this reason, the interest in the card is largely being driven by the Alvarado-Rios fight, whereas Donaire is just a name that is attracting his Filipino fans. In terms of competitive match-ups, the Alvarado vs. Rios fight is going to be a lot better fight than the Donaire-Nishioka fight. Alvarado and Rios are both young and still in their prime. They’re not getting on in years and ring rusty like Nishioka.

Rios can look really good when he’s not weight drained like he’s been in his last two fights against John Murray and Richard Abril. Hopefully, Rios doesn’t have to drain just to make weight at 140, because if he can’t even make this weight than I don’t see much of a future for him. If he’s forced to move up to welterweight he’s going to have problems because he doesn’t have the talent, power or speed to compete with natural welterweights. You put Rios in with guys like Andre Berto and Marcos Maidana and he’s going to get embarrassed.

Alvarado is going to be a really tough fight for Rios, and I can see Alvarado winning this one unless Rios can find another gear that he’s not shown thus far. Alvarado is bigger and eats up guys that fight like Rios does. This is going to be a huge adjustment for Rios because he’s so used to being the bigger guy. He’s not going to be for this fight and he’s not going to be the stronger guy either.