Brandon Rios – Mike Alvarado: Was the FIX IN?

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By Lou Eisen

Photo Chis Farina/Top Rank

To call the third and final match of the Mike Alvarado-Brandon Rios trilogy a fight would be rather disingenuous in the extreme. Alvarado would have had to make even a feeble attempt to fight back for this bout to have been considered a fight. Rios easily annihilated Alvarado in three short but very one-sided brutal rounds, using his thunderous right uppercut to end Alvarado’s reign as an elite fighter. However, it must be noted that as sharp and accurate as Rios was, he was engaging a boxer who adamantly refused to defend himself or fight back. To a casual boxing observer, it may have looked like one fighter caught his opponent early with some good shots and that his opponent was simply unable to recover. To a veteran ring observer, there was something else at play.

The question that needs to be answered is why did Alvarado, in perhaps the most important fight of his career, make no effort whatsoever to block, duck, parry or slip any of Rios’s punches. Alvarado also made little to no attempt to attack Rios. We may never know what truly happened in the ring in Denver last night between Rios and Alvarado. Perhaps we don’t want to know. All that was certain was that Alvarado deliberately allowed Rios to turn his face into raw hamburger meat in the three rounds the fight lasted and then, unceremoniously quit on his stool while his corner was vehemently urging him to fight on. Alvarado made very few attempts to land any power punches, or even punches of any kind on Rios. Alvarado’s balance was way off and he telegraphed what few shots he attempted to land on Rios. The few measly shots Alvarado did throw missed by a wide margin.

To this observer, something was awry at the 1stBank Center in Broomfield, Colorado. The fans in attendance were extremely angry and rightfully so. They came en masse and paid good, hard-earned money to root for their hometown hero Alvarado, who in turn, made no effort to fight and then quit on his stool after the third round. When HBO interviewed Alvarado after the fight, the boos resounded throughout the 1stBank center at such a high volume that it was difficult to hear Alvarado’s feeble explanations for what took place. Alvarado was neither remorseful about his defeat nor hopeful about his future. He said he will be back but that is rather unlikely. He looks to be utterly used up and finished as a pro fighter. He just didn’t seem to care one way or another about himself, the fans or the fight he had just lost.

The Rios-Alvarado was very reminiscent of a well-known fixed fight from the 1940’s, specifically the Jake Lamotta – “Black Jack” Billy Fox fight on November 14, 1947 at Madison Square Garden. In that fight, LaMotta leaned on the ropes and allowed the weak punching Billy Fox to hit him at will until referee Frank Fullam stopped the fight in the fourth round. LaMotta admitted years later that he had indeed thrown the fight on the on the orders of the Mob, in order to get a title shot at middleweight champ Marcel Cerdan. There is no hard evidence to allow someone to categorically conclude that Alvarado purposely lost to Rios in their third bout. It only looks that way.

Alvarado would not have to throw a fight to gain a title shot. His name alone and the fact that he is a former world champion would guarantee him a title shot against any champion of his choosing in his weight division. Before last night, his take-no-prisoners style would also have helped him easily garner a title shot. In fact, last night’s fight was for the vacant WBO international welterweight title. It was no secret that in the months leading up to this much-anticipated fight, Alvarado was constantly in trouble with the law. It was well known that Alvarado was running around Denver with a rather unsavory crowd. He is a convicted felon, so for Alvarado to hang out with similar folk would be a direct violation of his parole. In addition to that, Alvarado was arrested by police for having a gun in the glove compartment of his car. This happened not too long ago at 4:00 am in the early morning. When HBO blow-by-blow man Jim Lampley questioned Alvarado on this he gave the lame excuse that he woke up at that time in his house, and was thirsty and went out for a drink. Alvarado looked as if he even didn’t believe his own alibi. He said he did not know the gun was in the glove compartment of the car. Lampley wisely decided not to press the issue.

Guest analyst Andre Ward said that during the fighter interviews prior to the fight Alvarado looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Alvarado is facing jail time for the gun found in his car. Convicted felons are not allowed to own or possess guns or weapons of any kind. For the past month or so, boxing writer Steve Kim frequently stated that Alvarado was having many personal problems and was having a lot of trouble just remaining in training camp. When he was in camp, he had a difficult time focusing on his training for this fight. It seems that there is something else at play here and that the public has not heard the full story of what is going on in the life of Alvarado. Maybe the fact that a possible jail sentence is hanging over him is what muted his ability to fight effectively against Rios. Maybe Ruslan Provodnikov ruined Alvarado permanently when he stopped him in ten rounds several fights back. It was crystal clear from the moment his rubber match with Rios started that Alvarado’s mind was not focused on the task at hand.

The other possibility is that Alvarado thought he deserved to be punished for recent misdeeds and therefore took the beating willfully. This does happen in boxing at times. Jake LaMotta often took many shots on purpose because he thought he was an evil man and deserved to be punished. Although it is a possibility I do not think that was what we witnessed between Rios and Alvarado in their third encounter. As stated above we are missing an important piece of the puzzle that we may one day find out in a manner, which, unfortunately, may sadden us greatly.

It is true that Alvarado’s troubles outside the ring proved to be a huge distraction to him leading up to this fight. Those distractions had a very negative impact on his training regimen for this bout. His ability to concentrate and prepare properly for the Rios fight was nil. You could tell by his attitude and body language that he did not want to be there in the ring against Rios last night. Also, you can’t train adequately to fight any opponent when you are not in camp. That being said, Rios deserves full credit for his dramatic dismantling of Alvarado. Rios trained hard and was in great shape for the bout. Rios used short, concussive uppercuts (his favorite punch) to violently send Alvarado’s head back time and time again. Rios also used his patented left hook to the liver and mixed it in with an overall brutal body attack. Alvarado’s flanks were a mass of welts after the fight. Alvarado landed one good shot in the second round, a short left hook that landed on Rios’s chin but did no damage nor did it halt Rios’s forward momentum.

After getting hit with over half a dozen flush shots on the chin in round three, Alvarado took a knee. He got up to finish out the round. After the third round, he quit in his corner. He said he could not see out of his left eye after Rios tagged him on the eye. There was no redness or swelling around the eye but then again, I wasn’t the one who got hit with the shot. It takes a lot of power and skill to break another man’s will to fight, especially someone as genuinely tough as Alvarado. However, it looked as if Alvarado’s will to fight was broken long ago. All Rios did was confirm it.