Brandon Rios vs. Mike Alvarado 3 in less than 2 weeks

By Boxing News - 01/11/2015 - Comments

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By Allan Fox: For boxing fans anxious to see the third fight between former world champions Brandon Rios (32-2-1, 23 KOs) and Mike Alvarado (34-3, 23 KOs), their fight will be taking place in less than two weeks from now on HBO on January 24th at the 1stBank Center, in Bloomfield, Colorado, USA.

The trilogy fight between Alvarado and Rios promises to be a lot of brutal slugging with little in the way of defense from either fighter. Even if they wanted to use defense in this fight, neither guy has the legs to move much to try and avoid getting hit with shots.

The two guys have fought with each splitting a pair in exciting fights. That was reason enough to put them back together again. Neither guy is what you can call a championship level fighter at this point in their careers, but they’re still fun to watch when they face each other. They don’t do so well when fighting other guys, but they do well against each other.

Alvarado’s last win was against Rios when he defeated him two years ago by a 12 round unanimous decision in March 2013 at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It’s hard to believe it’s been two long years since Alvarado last won a fight, because he was always a good fighter that could be counted on to keep piling up the victories. However, Alvarado’s promoters at Top Rank have matched him tough in his last two fights against Ruslan Provodnikov and Juan Manuel Marquez, and Alvarado didn’t have the skills to beat either guy.

Provodnikov stopped Alvarado in the 10th round in October 2010 to briefly take his WBO light welterweight title before losing it himself to Chris Algieri in his first title defense. Alvarado then fought Marquez in May of last year and was soundly beaten him by a 12 round decision.

Rios’ situation is pretty much the same as Alvarado’s as far as him struggling recently. Rios was given a 9th round disqualification win over Diego Chaves last August in a fight that Rios would have lost had the referee not disqualified Chaves for him throwing a phantom elbow.

Rios lost his two previous fights before that to Manny Pacquiao and Alvarado. So you can basically say that Rios has lost his last two fights if you count the Chaves fight, which would have been a loss for him too.

Rios has the chin and the power to give Alvarado problems in this fight if he can cut off the ring and force him into a war like he did in their first fight.

Alvarado is likely going to try and move as much as possible in order to box his way to a win. He’s got to know from his first two fights with Rios that he doesn’t stand a chance if he stands and trades with him in this fight. Alvarado used just enough movement in their second fight to get the victory, but it remains to be seen if he can move enough at 34 to get the victory.



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