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By Thomas Gerbasi - If fate made a different turn, WBO junior welterweight champion Mike Alvarado might have been on this Saturday’s UFC 166 card in Houston, and not headlining the HBO boxing event in Denver against Ruslan Provodnikov that same night.
He was that good a wrestler when he was a teenager, winning two state championships for Skyview High School. But when the time came to decide whether to go to college or take another route, he took that other route, lacing on boxing gloves and beginning on a career that led him to a world championship in 2013.
As for mixed martial arts, Alvarado says “Once I got so deep into the boxing game, I was really just focused on making my name in boxing. Maybe if MMA was big as it is now when I finished high school, I think maybe I would have joined MMA, but I think this is my calling. I’ve always been a boxer.”
And a helluva boxer at that. But does he ever think how dangerous he could have been with his wrestling ability and being able to hit opponents with four ounce gloves?
“Right?” he laughs. “Hell yeah. That would be brutal.”
Brutal could describe the 33-year-old’s career to this point. In a game where safety-first became the key phrase for up and comers, Alvarado specialized in safety-last. That made him a popular attraction among the hardcore fight set, but the call to that next level never seemed to come, despite a gaudy unbeaten record. Some of that was self-inflicted thanks to some jail time over the years, but even after he got on the straight and narrow, he didn’t seem to get the breaks other fighters got. [Click Here To Read More]
He was that good a wrestler when he was a teenager, winning two state championships for Skyview High School. But when the time came to decide whether to go to college or take another route, he took that other route, lacing on boxing gloves and beginning on a career that led him to a world championship in 2013.
As for mixed martial arts, Alvarado says “Once I got so deep into the boxing game, I was really just focused on making my name in boxing. Maybe if MMA was big as it is now when I finished high school, I think maybe I would have joined MMA, but I think this is my calling. I’ve always been a boxer.”
And a helluva boxer at that. But does he ever think how dangerous he could have been with his wrestling ability and being able to hit opponents with four ounce gloves?
“Right?” he laughs. “Hell yeah. That would be brutal.”
Brutal could describe the 33-year-old’s career to this point. In a game where safety-first became the key phrase for up and comers, Alvarado specialized in safety-last. That made him a popular attraction among the hardcore fight set, but the call to that next level never seemed to come, despite a gaudy unbeaten record. Some of that was self-inflicted thanks to some jail time over the years, but even after he got on the straight and narrow, he didn’t seem to get the breaks other fighters got. [Click Here To Read More]
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