Photo Credit: Chris Farina\/Top Rank<\/strong><\/p>\nThis coming Saturday, Jan. 24 at the 1stBank Center, in Bloomfield, Colorado, junior welterweight stalwarts and former world champions Brandon \u201cBam Bam\u201d Rios, 32-2-1, 23 KO\u2019s and Mike \u201cMile High\u201d Alvarado, 34-3, 23 KO\u2019s will engage in the third and final installment of their thrillingly brutal three fight trilogy. Both men are attempting to get their respective careers back on the winning path. Alvarado has lost three of his previous four fights while Rios has lost two of his previous three fights.<\/p>\n
Alvarado\u2019s only victory in that time period was his exciting, well-crafted and hard-earned 12 round unanimous decision victory over Rios in March of 2013 to capture Rios\u2019s WBO World super lightweight title. Unfortunately, Alvarado lost the title in his very next fight to an immoveable force known as Ruslan Provodnikov, who may very well be the toughest man in all of boxing next to Alvarado. In May of 2014 in California, Alvarado challenged the ancient warrior Juan Manuel Marquez for the vacant WBO international welterweight title and lost a wide, 12 round unanimous decision to the wily and super tough Marquez. Marquez brought his vast reservoir of ring experience to bear in the fight, often beating Alvarado to the punch while slipping his power shots on the inside to land at will.<\/p>\n
After his dramatic loss to Alvarado in March of 2013, Rios moved up to the welterweight division to challenge a come-backing Manny Pacquiao in March for the vacant WBO international welterweight title at the Cotai Arena, located in the Venetian Resort in Macao, China. Pacquiao dominated every round of the fight, giving Rios a brutal 12 round beating in the process while handing the uber tough warrior his second professional defeat. In August at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, Rios was awarded a win by disqualification over the Diego Chavez who consistently went out of his way to foul Rios in every round. By round nine, referee Vic Drakulich had seen enough and correctly disqualified Chavez for a myriad of fouls, the last one being rubbing the palm of his glove over Rios\u2019s mouth while holding Rios in a headlock.<\/p>\n
In a way, this fight is a chance for redemption for both fighters. The main difference in this fight from their previous two is that neither warrior can now make the super-lightweight weight limit. That is why this fight is for the vacant WBO international welterweight title. This is a great opportunity for one or both men to raise their status to the elite level once again, which would see them get substantially more money for their future fights.<\/p>\n
The question here is, does either fighter have enough left in the tank to rise to the occasion in this, their third high octane go around. Both men are certainly not the fighters they once were when they fought those first two fights. The question of how much either man has left may be more applicable to Alvarado than Pacquiao as boxing insiders along with boxing writer Steve Kim, have regularly alluded to the fact that Alvarado is out of control and is acting in a way that is unfocused and undisciplined. Against a tiger like Rios that may very well end up costing Alvarado the fight if not his career.<\/p>\n
Alvarado\u2019s handlers however have stated repeatedly that his preparations in Los Angeles at the Azteca Gym and in Carson City at the Bell have gone extremely well and that Alvarado is mentally and physically prepared for this fight. They also claim that Alvarado will be much better suited than Rios to make adjustments on the go as the fight goes through it\u2019s inevitable twists and turns. Alvarado stated recently, \u201c I will try to box him rather than face him head on, which is his area of strength. However, if I am forced to fight him toe-to-toe I will do so and I will win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alvarado likes training in Los Angeles because there are just too many distractions in the \u201c303,\u201d (area code for Denver) and too many opportunities for everything to come off the rails. When Alvarado has too much free time on his hands, trouble seems to come knock, knock, knockin\u2019 at his door, to paraphrase Bob Dylan.<\/p>\n
Rios and Alvarado are friends and bear no personal enmity towards each other. They both share a healthy respect for each other\u2019s power. Rios believes that his iron chin and willingness to take risks on the inside are precisely t what will lead him to victory over Alvarado this coming Saturday night. When asked for a prediction about his third bout with Alvarado, Rios simply replied, \u201cI can\u2019t wait! World War 3, baby!\u201d He said he was in shape to go the distance and could take any and everything that Alvarado could throw at him and still come back and finish off his equally determined rival.<\/p>\n
Alvarado called his third fight with Rios destiny and there is some truth to that. As Alvarado correctly noted, \u201cThis fight was destined to happen after we spit our first two fights.\u201d Rios won their first battle stopping Alvarado via a seventh round TKO. Alvarado rebounded in the rematch to outbox Rios and use his feet and ring generalship to pull out an improbable unanimous decision victory. Alvarado was losing their second fight early and got wobbled in the first three rounds but then made the necessary adjustments to ultimately turn things around in his favor. He used his educated feet and superior hand speed to create angles, which seemed to confuse Rios at time.<\/p>\n
Alvarado smartly resorted to constantly turning Rios, never allowing him to set himself long enough to land any power-punching combinations. Rios was reduced to throwing one big shot at a time, which was not enough to achieve victory in that bout. Now, both combatants want to settle once and for all who is the best man between the two of them. Although they are fighting for the vacant WBO international welterweight title, in reality, they are fighting for the championship of each other, which is perhaps the hardest of all belts to acquire.<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Lou Eisen Photo Credit: Chris Farina\/Top Rank This coming Saturday, Jan. 24 at the 1stBank Center, in Bloomfield, Colorado, junior welterweight stalwarts and former world champions Brandon \u201cBam Bam\u201d Rios, 32-2-1, 23 KO\u2019s and Mike \u201cMile High\u201d Alvarado, 34-3, 23 KO\u2019s will engage in the third and final installment of their thrillingly brutal three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11892],"class_list":["post-50187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-brandon-rios-mike-alvarado-iii-a-closer-look"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50187"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}