Rios vs. Alvarado 3 moved back to January

By Boxing News - 10/23/2014 - Comments

rios76By Dan Ambrose: The long awaited third fight between #4 WBO Brandon Rios (32-2-1, 23 KOs) and former WBO light welterweight champion Mike Alvarado (34-3, 23 KOs) has been moved from December 20th to January, according to Steve Kim.

There’s some issues on Alvarado’s side slowing the fight down from getting made. There’s also a question of where the fight will take place. Bob Arum of Top Rank doesn’t want the fight to be staged in Alvarado’s home city of Denver, Colorado, due to the cold weather than boxing fans would have to deal with in trying to get to the fight in the middle of the winter.

The worst thing that fans need is to get stuck in the snow while traveling to Denver.

Alvarado and Rios both have hit a really rough patch in their careers. Alvarado has lost 3 out of his last 4 fights; whereas Rios has lost 2 out of his last 3 fights. You can really say that Rios has lost 4 out of his last 5 fights, because his disqualification win over Diego Chaves was a controversial one where he was losing the fight when the referee disqualified Chaves for throwing an elbow that few boxing fans saw Chaves throw in the 9th round. Further, Rios was given a questionable win over Richard Abril in 2012 in a fight where Rios was totally dominated. I saw the fight and I had Rios winning 1 of the 12 rounds.

Alvarado-Rios 3 is a good ESPN2 level fight, but not really HBO worthy because neither of these guys are going anywhere in their careers. They’re basically gate keepers, and guys that Arum uses to mix and match against his best welterweights Manny Pacquiao and Tim Bradley.

I don’t see Rios or Alvarado ever winning another world title. That’s why I feel their fight is more of an undercard fight on HBO or an ESPN2 main event. The head-liner fights on HBO should arguably be for stars, world champions or fighters on their way up to world titles. I don’t see Rios or Alvarado fitting into any of those categories.



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