By Eric Thomas: Former WBO light welterweight champion Mike Alvarado (34-2, 23 KO’s) came out and admitted after his 10th round knockout loss to Russian Ruslan Provodnikov (23-2, 16 KO’s) last night that he felt it wasn’t worth it for him to continue fighting after the beating he took in the 10th round. Alvarado was asked by referee Tony Weeks if he wanted to continue fighting and he said no, according to Weeks.
This was one of the better fights for HBO. Compared to recent bout between Tim Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez, this fight was leagues above it in excitement. The crowd at the 1STBANK Center, Broomfield, in Denver, Colorado, USA, was loud and energetic up until the very end of the fight.
Alvarado said this via ESPN “It was not worth taking more punishment because the damage could be permanent. It was just not my night. I was boxing him and I felt I had the fight going in my direction, but he hit me with a couple of shots. I’m used to taking shots and recovering from them and tonight I wasn’t able to recover from the big shots.”
For the first six rounds, Alvarado did appear to have a small lead, but it wasn’t the kind of lead that where he was going to be able to coast. It was close and Alvarado may have fooled himself thinking that a lead at that point meant anything. There was still so much fight left and he was being forced to run to avoid getting hit. You could see that Alvarado’s running was going to empty his gas tank eventually even early in the fight in the first couple of rounds.
Alvarado didn’t look like the type of fighter that could run like that for 12 rounds. There are a number of guys in the welterweight division that can move like that for 12 rounds, Alvarado isn’t one of them. He should have made adjustments to start slowing down and becoming more stationary to conserve his strength or at least alternate rounds where he would run and stand his ground. It’s like Alvarado didn’t have a sound plan for this fight, and figured the bout would automatically end up just like his previous one against Brandon Rios last March.
Provodnikov hurt Alvarado with some hard body shots in the 8th that caused him to back up to the ropes. Provodnikov then moved in for the kill and knocked Alvarado down with some chopping punches. Alvarado almost didn’t make it back to his feet in time to beat the count. But Provodnikov quickly knocked Alvarado down again with a series of huge punches. Provodnikov flurried on Alvarado and he went down again. It was all pretty simple.
Alvarado just couldn’t handle Provodnikov’s power at that point in the fight. Whether it was due to his conditioning or the power of Provodnikov’s punches isn’t known. Near the end of the 8th round, Alvarado was able to put some punches together to finish the round strong to give him a little hope. But he looked like a beaten fighter in the 9th and 10th rounds, and was hurt each time Provodnikov would nail him with a hard shot.
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