By Chris Williams: For one of his most important fights of his career, Ruslan Provodnikov (22-2, 15 KO’s) won’t have his trainer Freddie Roach in his corner for this Saturday’s fight between Provodnikov and WBO light welterweight champion Mike Alvarado (34-1, 23 KO’s) at the 1STBANK Center, Broomfield, Denver, Colorado, USA.
Roach is busy training his number one fighter Manny Pacquiao in the Philippines for his do-or-die fight next month against Brandon Rios on November 23rd in Macao, China. Instead of Roach being in Provodnikov’s corner, he’ll have one of Roach’s coaches Marvin Samodio working the corner.
To be honest, I’m not sure it really matters that Roach won’t be there because it’s not as if Provodnikov will need to be told what he needs to do to beat Alvarado. It’s pretty simple.
Provodnikov has to cut off the ring and force Alvarado to fight for 12 rounds, because if he lets him circle the ring for 12 rounds like he did against Brandon Rios in his last fight in March, then Provodnikov will lose badly.
Provodnikov told ESPN “From the beginning I knew there was a chance that Freddie would not be in the corner on the day of the fight. We knew had obligations to Manny Pacquiao. We trained with Freddie for eight weeks exactly…we have been working on how to defeat Mike Alvarado.”
This isn’t rocket science. To beat Alvarado, Provodnikov will have to be able to stand his ground when Alvarado looks to exchange with him. In his last fight, Alvarado looked to steal rounds against Rios by turning it on in the last part of the round by throwing quick combinations and getting away. Alvarado doesn’t have the chin or the skin to stay in the pocket for 12 rounds to beat Provodnikov. If Alvarado tries to fight like that then he’ll get knocked out again.
Provodnikov, 5’6″, needs to close the distance on the 5’9″ Alvarado to make sure that he can’t dictate the fight by keeping things on the outside. If Provodnikov lets Alvarado fight on the outside then it might not be good for him.
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