By Eric Thomas: Mike Alvarado (33-1, 23 KO’s) came up empty the last time he fought former WBA World lightweight champion Brandon Rios (31-0-1, 23 KO’s) last year in October when Rios scored a 7th round knockout victory.
This time, Alvarado and Rios will be fighting on March 30th, and Alvarado looks to be handling the weight the weight a lot better than Rios, who looks weight drained already after putting on weight.
With a month to go before their rematch at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, Alvarado has been looking strong and in shape for the weight. Rios just looks painfully thin like someone who really doesn’t belong fighting at 140.
It could be that Rios has eaten himself out of the light welterweight division, which isn’t surprising because it’s only five pounds more than the lightweight division, and Rios was literally killing himself to make weight, and towards the end he still couldn’t make weight.
I think the rematch on March 30th is going to be decided on who’s the stronger fighter in terms of making weight. Rios arguably already should have a loss on his record from his fight against Richard Abril from last year in April. Rios struggled badly to make weight for the lightweight bout, and it left weight drained and still failed to make weight.
Rios was too weak to fight at a high level in that fight, and probably should have cost him the fight because he really got dominated. We could be seeing the same thing with Rios’ fight with Alvarado on March 30th, but I doubt we’ll have the judges give Rios the benefit of the doubt for a second time. He comes in weak for this fight then he’s going to take a beating from Alvarado, and it’ll be too easy for the judges to pick a winner.
I suspect that Rios isn’t long for the light welterweight division. The way he’s looking now has the classic look of a fighter that no longer should be fighting at 140. The problem is Rios may not have the frame or the speed to compete against the best fighters at 147 if and when he moves up, but he’s not going to have much choice because he’s clearly too heavy for the 140 lb. division now. By going up from 140 to 147, Rios will seven pounds to play with and that’ll make it a lot easier for him to come into his fights strong instead of weight drained.
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