On October 13th, Brandon Rios and Mike Alvarado engaged in one of
the most memorable battles in recent years. In what a fight that actually
surpassed lofty expectations, Rios scaled “Mile High” Alvarado and stopped him
in seven. Now, on March 30th at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, they
will resume their violent waltz.
“All the paperwork is done;
tickets go on sale at the end of the week and I don't know anybody who isn't
looking forward to it,” said Carl Moretti, VP of Boxing Operations for Top
Rank, which closed the deal on Wednesday afternoon.
After Rios-Alvarado I, Bob
Arum began drumming up interest in a possible fight between Rios and Manny
Pacquiao in April. But those plans were thwarted by a booming right hand
counter from Juan Manuel Marquez in December. What do they say about the best
laid plans of mice and men?
“Every fight that happens, regardless
of who, where and how, there's always a reaction and anything can happen and
anybody can step into it as a result of what happens in a particular fight,”
explained Moretti of how things were shuffled around. “And that night, because
of the way the fight went and the back-and-forth and the ending, just set up
the fifth fight between the two of them at some point, which will be huge with
what happened.
“But it also had a secondary effect with guys like Rios and Alvarado, who had hoped to fight somebody like Marquez or Pacquiao or something like that. So there's some fallout from the fight and that's what happened really.”
While having an immediate
rematch might be a bit of a letdown for Rios, for fans, it's a win-win. The
bottom line is that like an Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward, these two go together
like peanut butter and jelly. You just couldn't imagine them ever having an
uneventful affair if they fought a hundred times.
On March 30th,
they have their second go-round.
GGG
Also fighting on this date
will be WBA middleweight beltholder Gennady Golovkin, who is just a couple of
weeks removed from his January 19th stoppage of Gabriel Rosado at
the Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Tom Loeffler, managing
director of K2 Promotions, told Maxboxing, “It looks like it's going to be [Nobuhiro]
Ishida, March 30thin Monte Carlo.”
Ishida is best known for his stunning upset of James Kirkland back in April of 2011.
After that, they have a
commitment to appear on HBO again before the end of June.
“The plan after that, as
always been our plan, is for Gennady to fight the best fighters out there.
[Daniel] Geale had a big win in Australia [versus Anthony Mundine], so if he
wants to step up and try and reclaim his old title, that would always be in the
plans. If Felix Sturm wins on Friday [against Arthur
Abraham], we'd give Sturm a shot at a title and, naturally, the offers
are always open for [Julio Cesar] Chavez [Jr.] and [Sergio] Martinez, except
that I don't think a Chavez fight is realistic because it's too dangerous with
Gennady and I think Martinez seems to have his plate full now. But if there's
an opportunity that comes up against any one of these guys, he would definitely
fight them including a unification bout with [Peter] Quillin but they don't
seem to be interested in the near future either.”
So as it stands right now,
the plan to have Golovkin fight up to five times in 2013 is on schedule given
that it looks like he'll have three fights under his belt in the first half of
the year.
VEGAS
So why is the second edition
of Rios-Alvarado – which drew well in Southern California at the Home Depot
Center in Carson - not at a venue such as the Staples Center?
“Kobe's throwing too many assists and the Lakers were there. The building wasn't available between the Lakers and hockey. It's very rare to get an available Saturday night [at the Staples Center],” explained Moretti, forgetting the Clippers, the arena's other tenant.
HUMPDAY FLURRIES
Tickets for Rios-Alvarado II
are priced at $250, $150, $100 and $50 and will go on sale later this week...This
card will also have a televised co-feature on HBO...Yuriorkis Gamboa isn't
worth nearly all this trouble; is he?...If I'm HBO, I’d be very interested in
Daniel Geale but only if he faces the likes of a Martinez, Chavez or
Golovkin...Randy Moss is better than Jerry “Jesus in Cleats” Rice? Not in a
million years...How long is the facilitating version of Kobe Bryant going to
last?...
Steve can be reached at k9kim@yahoo.com and he tweets at www.twitter.com/stevemaxboxing. We also have a Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/MaxBoxing, where you can discuss our content with Maxboxing readers as well as chime in via our fully interactive article comments sections.
