By Robbie Bannatyne: Styles make Fights.
This is the truest cliché of all in boxing. And it was perfectly applicable to the hellacious battle between Mike Alvarado and Ruslan Provodnikov, in Denver, Colorado, last Saturday night.
The fight, which was valid for Alvarado’s WBO Light Welterweight title, had been billed as a bone fide fight of the year candidate ever since it was announced by Top Rank promotions. Those predictions proved to be spot on as it was a war of attrition from the beginning to the brutal end.
By Dan Ambrose: Last Saturday night’s bout bout between former WBO light welterweight champion Mike Alvarado (34-2, 23 KO’s) and Ruslan Provodnikov (23-2, 16 KO’s) drew an impressive 1.2 million viewers on HBO. The totals equals the amount of viewers that tuned in to watch Alvarado’s previous fight against Brandon Rios last March on HBO. 
By Rachel Aylett: On revisiting the big fight of the week, I would like to give enormous credit to new WBO light-welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov. I noted whilst watching his fight against Mike Alvarado that the Siberian Rocky is almost unrecognizable from the fighter that was soundly outpointed on ESPN’s Friday Night Fights in January 2011 by Mauricio Herrera. That was a fan friendly fight, as are all of Ruslan’s engagements, but the Russian lost clearly and was out-skilled by the fringe contender from the US. 
By Chris Williams: If Top Rank promoter Bob Arum wants newly crowned WBO light welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov (23-2, 16 KO’s) to fight his stable fighter Mike Alvarado (34-2, 23 KO’s) then he’s probably going to have to open up his wallet wide and dig deep to find enough change to make it appealing to Provodnikov to take the fight because he’s not interested in facing Alvarado again.
By Jay McIntyre: While this Saturday’s fight between Mike Alvarado (34-2, 23 KO’s) and Ruslan Provodnikov (23-2, 16 KO’s) was indeed a display of courage under fire, I couldn’t help but revise my earlier prediction (Mike Alvarado by decision) by the end of the first round. I know that it was a hasty reassessment, but in this case it proved to be a valid one.
By Babatis Banda: Mike Alvarado (34-2, 23 KO’s) was broken down by the ruthless Russian Ruslan Provodnikov (23-2, 16 KO’s). It was a good and exciting fight. For the casual fan, this was all that constitutes boxing, heavy exchanges and blood. 
By Gerardo Granados: Last night at Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.; the Siberian Rocky Ruslan Provodnikov defeated the defending champion Mike Mile High Alvarado by TKO10. In a fight that lived up to the expectations and none of the boxing fans got bored by the superb performance of these two ring warriors. I have no doubt that this one is a serious candidate for the fight of the year award. 
By Eric Thomas: Former WBO light welterweight champion Mike Alvarado (34-2, 23 KO’s) came out and admitted after his 10th round knockout loss to Russian Ruslan Provodnikov (23-2, 16 KO’s) last night that he felt it wasn’t worth it for him to continue fighting after the beating he took in the 10th round. Alvarado was asked by referee Tony Weeks if he wanted to continue fighting and he said no, according to Weeks.