–For months, the Mike Alvarado vs Brandon Rios showdown was hyped as being something that could be special. Thankfully for all of us, it lived up to the hype and delivered some brutal violent action. Rios was throwing crazy bombs, as was Alvarado, but Alvarado was also landing a lot of jabs and out boxing Rios for a good amount of time. I had Alvarado winning more rounds at the time of the stoppage, but Rios just turned it up and was landing big bombs with Alvarado against the ropes. It’s rare to see a fight where two guys stand toe to toe and try to take their heads off with horrifying shots. Maybe the stoppage was a bit too early, I would have loved to seen it continue but the stoppage doesn’t take away from what was an incredible insane fight. Personally, it’s my FOTY. After the bout, Rios expressed a desire to fight the winner of Marquez-Pacquiao IV. We’ll see what happens. In case you missed the fight, here are some highlights:
–During the lead up to the main event, there was some talk that this could potentially be Toshiaki Nishioka’s last fight. Nishioka just didn’t do much for most of the fight, looking like he was looking forward to retiring or maybe he just didn’t want to open himself up to Donaire. Donaire easily defeated him round by round, until dropping him in the 6th. It got exciting when Nishioka got up and started taunting Donaire. Then in the 9th, Donaire dropped him again while against the ropes and hitting a perfect straight right counter punch. Nishioka recovered but as soon as Donaire was starting to swarm on him, Nishioka’s corner stopped the fight. Compared to what Rios-Alvarado was, this fight was a bit of a let down, but it was still a solid performance from the current 122 lbs kingpin.
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