Antonio Margarito vs. Ramon Alvarez results

By Boxing News - 08/14/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: Antonio Margarito (40-8, 27 KOs) proved that he still has a little left of his once impressive boxing skills tonight in defeating #12 WBC 154lb contender Ramon “Incocente” Alvarez (23-5-2, 15 KOs) by a 10 round split decision on Saturday night to capture the WBO Continental junior middleweight title at the Baja California Center in Playas de Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico.

The final judges’ scores were 97-92, 97-92 for Margarito, and 95-94 for Alvarez. Margarito dropped Alvarez in round eight with a right hand to the head that caused him to fall stumbling to the canvas. Before the knockdown, Margarito had landed a number of hard shots that drop a hurt Alvarez to the corner where he was knocked down.

Margarito initially had problems in round one, as he was getting countered by Alvarez each time he would attempt to throw one of his painfully slow punches. Alvarez was able to hit Margarito with some nice left hooks and right hands.

By round two, Margarito figured out Alvarez’s style and began to lean back when he would attempt to him with wide left hooks and sweeping right hands. Alvarez’s lack of reach left him hitting air over and over. Margarito started to jab Alvarez with hard jabs followed by right hands to the head. Late in the round, Margarito tagged Alvarez with a left-right combination that knocked him backwards to the ropes. The pro-Margarito crowd roared appreciation for the shots that he had just landed. Alvarez looked stunned briefly, but he did a good job of continuing to fight.

The victory for Margarito over Ramon Alvarez leaves you to wonder whether his brother Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will look to avenge the loss for Ramon. Margarito has made it no secret that he wants to fight Canelo, and he would like nothing better to try and beat both of them. Canelo has a fight scheduled already next month on September 17 against WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith. Canelo’s next date after that is in December, but he’s supposed to be fighting for a world title against WBO middleweight division unless he changes his mind and decides to fight the 38-year-old Margarito. I’m not sure if that fight sells to the American public, but you never know. There are a lot of casual boxing fans that might not be aware that Margarito left his prime in his rear view mirror back in 2008.

Margarito, a former IBF/WBA/WBO welterweight champion, pressured the shorter 5’8″ Alvarez in every round with his jabs and right hands to the head. The 30-year-old Alvarez did a good job of landing pot shot counter punches to make Margarito pay for many of his shots. However, Margarito was able to make the shorter-armed Alvarez miss repeated in many of the rounds. Margarito then jabbed and nailed Alvarez with right hands.

Alvarez was given a pep talk by his younger brother Saul “Canelo” Alvarez after the eighth round. Alvarez seemed to need the encouragement from Canelo because things were looking bleak for him after Margarito knocked him down in the 8th. Alvarez came out looking like a new man in the 9th, as he stopped moving away from Margarito and began to pressure him. Margarito looked confused by the sudden pressure from Alvarez, because he had been moving away from him for the first eight rounds. Alvarez connected on a big right and left during the round to stop Margarito’s forward progress. Alvarez’s right eye was looking bruised by the end of the round.

At the start of the 10th round, Alvarez nailed Margarito with a big right uppercut to the head. Alvarez followed that up with a series of right hands to the head that caused Margarito to back off. Margarito took some heavy shots from Alvarez in the round and did very little.

Alvarez just didn’t show much in the way of talent in the fight. He’s too short for the 154lb division, and not particularly fast or powerful. It was kind of sad to see Alvarez getting punched around by a faded former world class fighter in Margarito. The difference in talent between the two fighters was pretty substantial. The only reason why Alvarez didn’t get beaten far worse than he did was because of how old and past his prime Margarito. Had this been a prime Margarito, he would have beaten Alvarez badly and stopped him for sure. Alvarez doesn’t look like he deserved the #12 ranking he came into the fight in the WBC’s rankings. He’s a very mediocre fighter that looks 2nd tier all the way in terms of talent. He was so average.

Margarito was out of boxing from 2011 to 2016 after he retired due to eye problems. Margarito was already showing signs of fading even before he retired. He was very good fighter from the start of his career in 1994 to 2009.

The one thing that Margarito was missing tonight was his high work rate. A younger Margarito was like a tornado with the way he would throw nonstop punches and average over 100 punches thrown per round. Margarito was trained that was to throw nonstop punches and it worked well for him until he fought Shane Mosley in 2009. Mosley used the punch and grab technique to slow Margarito’s work rate down and get a stoppage. Margarito looked like he wasn’t in that fight mentally after his hand-wraps were found to be carrying extra padding with a foreign substance in them.

With the way that Golden Boy Promotions is matching Canelo, you can’t rule out a fight between him and Margarito. Indeed, I definitely see it happening for sure, because I don’t think Golden Boy has any serious plans of putting their golden goose Canelo in with anyone that has the potential to beat him like Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, Daniel Jacobs, the Charlo brothers, Demetrius Andrade or back with Erislandy Lara. You can see with the match-making that is being done for Canelo by Golden Boy that they’re just looking for beatable guys with or without a name. The opponent they’ve got Canelo fighting next month, Liam Smith, isn’t a big name. The opponent that Canelo is expected to fight in December, Billy Joe Saunders, is another fighter that is considered to be a paper champion in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans. For Canelo to fight Margarito is so predictable.