Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Mike Alvarado this Saturday, 5/17, in Inglewood, California

By Boxing News - 05/11/2014 - Comments

clip_image002By Dan Ambrose: 40-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez (55-7-1, 40 KO’s) will have his career on the line next Saturday night when he faces former WBO 140 pound champion Mike Alvarado (34-2, 23 KO’s) in a fight at the Forum in Inglewood, California. Marquez wants another shot at the WBO welterweight title, so if he beats Alvarado, he’ll very likely be fighting WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao later on this year in what would be a fifth fight between them.

At this point of Pacquiao’s career, Marquez is the only guy that brings in a lot of pay-per-view buys, and that’s why their promoter Bob Arum keeps repeatedly matching them against each other. Alvarado may prove to be a tough obstacle for Marquez to get passed, because he’s bigger, stronger and younger than Marquez. Alvarado may have looked bad in his loss to Ruslan Provodnikov last October in losing by a 10th round TKO, but that was against a much more aggressive fighter and at a different weight.

Alvarado is a huge light welterweight, and he probably should have moved up in weight to the welterweight division 3 years ago, because he’s far too big to be melting down to fight at 140. But by moving up in weight to 147, Alvarado should be a lot stronger than he’s been in many years, and that’s going to be a real problem for Marquez in this fight. He’s not had to face someone as big or as strong as Alvarado during his career, and this fight is coming at a really bad time for him with him having lost his last fight to Tim Bradley last October.

Marquez looked like he’d aged badly from his fight with Pacquiao just two years ago, and he probably should have retired after the loss. Bradley made him look like an old man, and I suspect that Alvarado will make him look even worse on Saturday.

Marquez turned down a fight against Provodnikov for his WBO light welterweight title, presumably to take the lesser threat of facing Alvarado. But I believe Marquez is going to find out that Alvarado is every bit as tough as Provodnikov would have been, and I think he’s going to lose to him badly. The only way I believe that Marquez will win this fight is if he wins a controversial decision with the judges giving him a win despite him getting dominated.



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