Brandon Rios and Mike Avarado will be going to war on Saturday night in a fight for the interim WBO light welterweight title on HBO at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The winner of the Rios vs. Alvarado fight will be in line to eventually challenge for the WBO full 140 pound title, which is held at this time by WBO champion Juan Manuel Marquez.
For Rios, it’s important that he defeat Alvarado once again in order to get a big money fight against Manny Pacquiao. Rios was supposed to be fighting Pacquiao already, but the plans were changed when Pacquiao was destroyed by Marquez in a 6th round knockout last December. Pacquiao now could end up facing Marquez, the winner of the Alvarado-Rios fight or Tim Bradley in September.
29-year-old light welterweight Breidis Prescott (29-4, 20 KO’s) will be facing unbeaten lightweight fringe contender Terence Crawford (19-0, 15 KO’s) in a scheduled 10 round bout on the undercard of the Brandon Rios vs. Mike Alvarado bout on HBO at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
WBC Silver light heavyweight champion Tony Bellew (19-1, 12 KO’s) will be taking on a tough opponent in #3 WBC Isaac Chilemba (20-1-1, 9 KO’s) in defending his title at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK. Bellew, 30, needs to win this fight to keep his #1 WBC ranking and to stay in line to challenge for the title against the winner of the June 8th fight between WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson and Adonis Stevenson.
WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (26-0, 14 KO’s) doesn’t believe that the 22-year-old WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) has developed his full power as of yet, and still isn’t strong enough to defeat him when the two meet up on Showtime on April 20th at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
WBC interim welterweight champion Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (31-1-1, 18 KO’s) really only has one way to beat WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (43-0, 26 KO’s) on May 4th and that’s by using the same game plan that he employed in his recent fight against Andre Berto last November in throwing a lot of punches.
Former 2000 Olympic Gold medalist for Britain Audley Harrison (31-6, 23 KO’s) has agreed to face unbeaten American heavyweight contender Deontay Wilder (27-0, 27 KO’s) on April 27th on the Amir Khan vs. Julio Diaz card at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
There’s talk of unbeaten heavyweight contender #9 WBA Deontay Wilder (27-0, 27 KO’s) fighting on the undercard of the Amir Khan vs. Julio Diaz card on April 27th at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom. Golden Boy Promotions is interested in trying to get 41-year-old Tony Thompson to face Wilder.
HBO will be televising the replay of the March 16th fight between WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (30-0, 12 KO’s) and Ruslan Provodnikov (22-2, 15 KO’s) in their fight from the Home Depot Center in Carson, California. The fight was an exciting one from start to finish with Bradley getting hurt badly on four separate occasions, yet still winning the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 115-112, 114-113 and 114-113.
WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) plans on leaving no doubts as to who the better fighter is in the ring when he faces WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (26-0, 14 KO’s) next month at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
Having finally avenged his defeat against journeyman Darnell Boone by stopping him in the 6th round last Friday night, super middleweight contender Adonis Stevenson (20-1, 17 KO’s) will now set his sights on WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (31-2, 17 KO’s) for a title challenge on June 8th at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. Stevenson’s promoter Yvon Michel hopes to have negotiations completed between Stevenson and Dawson this week.