Marquez Beats Alvarado – Juan Manuel Still Has It At 40
By Peter Wells
After several hard and brutal wars, it was no wonder that Mike Alvarado 34-3(23) could not quite produce on a 4th consecutive basis. The blows he received seemed to be catching up with him and the mental scars seem hard to cover. That only makes it even more incredible that Juan Manuel Marquez, at 40 and following multiple hard wars, is still able to produce at the highest level. Even defeat last time out to the younger Timothy Bradley could not faze this Mexican maestro.
Over 12 rounds Juan Manuel Marquez 56-7-1(40) controlled the contest, taking a unanimous points victory. Both fighters hit the canvas in an entertaining but one-sided affair.
Alvarado looked cagey for most of the fight and was easily picked off by Marquez rights in the early stages. Marquez was comfortable at the pace, as he was able to set up sharp single shots before unleashing short 3-4 punch bursts.
From the 2nd round Alvarado began to mark up around the left eye, as he was made to miss and made to pay when he let his hands go with single and easy to counter shots.
Too wary of what was coming back at him, Alvarado closed the gap and set his feet well, but was ineffective in his pursuit of Marquez as he failed to let leather fly.
While the lack of offense may have been a confidence issue for Alvarado, the way in which he switched stances for no reason made one wonder if he had a gameplan to beat Marquez, as it seemed early on he was out of ideas.
Alvarado’s best chance of victory looked to be to brawl with Marquez and following his recent wars, no one will hold it against Alvarado for trying to find another route to victory.
Alvarado tried his luck at the end of rounds 4, 5 and 6 as they exchanged blows, in by far his most effective moments of the contest at that point.
Marquez continued to find the gaps as Alvarado continued to find himself in no man’s land, and he was made to pay for wondering around the ring in the 8th as he was nailed by a hard right hand. Alvarado managed to drag himself to his feet with little of the round to go for Marquez to press home for a stoppage.
Alvarado recovered in the 9th and scored a flash knockdown as a wild exchange culminated in Marquez touching down from a short right. The 9th round then exploded into life as Marquez looked to regain pride, trading frenetically with Alvarado.
The hot action continued in the 10th, both trading and clattering one another with solid rights. But the final two rounds petered out as Marquez regained control from the outside, boxing his way to a one-sided win.
The official scorecards read 117-109 (twice) and 119-108 all for Marquez, as he sets himself up to take on the WBO Welterweight champion…..Manny Pacquiao.
So Marquez-Pacquiao 5 looks on the cards next while Mike Alvarado would be wise to look to rebuild at Light Welterweight – this fight was contested just above the Light Welter limit, 143lbs. His road back will be very tough, but with a couple of adjustments – namely head movement or stopping leaning forward leaving himself open to uppercuts – he can regain some confidence that he lost in defeat to Ruslan Provodnikov.
Postol vs Aydin
On the undercard, Viktor Postol finished a fine performance in devastating fashion as he landed a one-punch highlight reel knockout to finish Selcuk Aydin 26-3(19) in the 11th.
Postol was far ahead on the scorecards when the knockout came as he controlled proceedings with a dominant jab that had the shorter Aydin in fits all night.
Aydin did start the fight well, tagging Postol with a hard left hook which really staggered the Ukrainian.
The success though didn’t last as although I gave him the 2nd he was dominated from then on. Postol moved and jabbed, adding right hands as Aydin looked to be getting further and further away from the chin of Postol as the fight went along.
To his credit Aydin tried to close the gap but it was to no avail as he only pushed Postol to inflict more damage with precise straight shots.
After a methodical display Postol finished things off with a bang in the 11th, after a point deduction for Aydin he became even more raged, and leaning in with his chin exposed, Postol fired a quick and powerful right uppercut to floor Aydin heavily, the fight was immediately waved off.
Postol improved to 26-0(11) as he looks to make himself known in the Light Welterweight title picture.
To start off the night were two relatively comfortable victories for Diego Magdaleno 26-1(10) and Oscar Valdez 11-0(10) respectively.
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