The Seized Opportunity of Eleider Alvarez, Take Two
By Cliff Rold
It would be fair to ask if maybe, just maybe, it was him all along.
There will never be, can’t be, an answer. Whether Eleider Alvarez (24-0, 12 KO) goes on to reign as a light heavyweight titlist for the next decade, or loses the WBO belt back immediately to Sergey Kovalev (32-3-1, 28 KO) this Saturday night (ESPN+, 12 AM EST), what might have been for the now 34-year old Colombian will always be conjecture.
The only thing we know for sure is, when his big opportunity came, he put Kovalev on the deck three times and walked out a winner. This Saturday, he gets the opportunity to perhaps close the door on Kovalev for good.
But what might have been.
Alvarez waited a long time for a shot like the one he got last August. He first rose to be the leading WBC contender to the light heavyweight crown in 2015. Following a win over Isaac Chilemba, it was supposed to be a matter of time. Time kept passing.
Numerous step-aside fees and delays allowed Adonis Stevenson to avoid Alvarez for years. It’s the sort of thing having mandatory contenders is supposed to eliminate. Alvarez played along for a long time until he didn’t anymore. He finally exited the WBC waiting game in early 2018 and sought his chances elsewhere. Two-plus years were long enough.
How well a fighter is remembered after they’re done, the stature they take with them as they join the ranks of inevitable former champions, can often be as much about timing as it is talent. We know Alvarez was capable of defeating Kovalev in 2018.
That doesn’t mean he could have defeated Stevenson in 2016 or Kovalev before the Russian’s two battles with Andre Ward. It also doesn’t mean he could have defeated Ward.
It doesn’t men he couldn’t have either. That’s what we’ll never know. What if Eleider Alvarez has been the best light heavyweight in the world for years and the world just didn’t know it? Those opportunities weren’t there for him. Alvarez makes do with the chances he has ahead of him, beginning this weekend, to carve a place among the men who have held versions of the light heavyweight crown.
If he can get by Kovalev again this weekend, the WBO ratings are probably the first place to look for where Alvarez’s road could wind. The leading WBO contender is the UK’s Anthony Yarde (17-0, 16 KO). It’s the highest rating for Yarde in any of the sanctioning bodies and he’s been open about wanting to pursue the challenge.
The game of defending against the best available according to the WBO might be the best Alvarez can hope for in the immediate future but there are reasons to hope for more.
Alvarez, now in the stable with Top Rank, can assume no matter who he fights next that he will be featured on ESPN if he keeps winning. While this weekend it will be on the app, in general it will mean plenty of possible eyeballs over time. It won’t necessarily mean all the biggest fights would be easily available.
WBA titlist Dmitry Bivol recently signed with Matchroom and will air his talents on the DAZN app beginning with a defense against Joe Smith later this year. Top Rank has plenty of big pieces of the light heavyweight pie without Bivol.
The man who did get his mandatory fulfilled against Stevenson, Oleksandr Gvozdyk, made the most of it last year even if the fight will be recalled for the near tragedy of its conclusion. As Stevenson mends from head injuries suffered in a knockout loss, Gvozdyk carries on as the WBC and lineal king of the class. Top Rank also has a deal with IBF titlist Artur Beterbiev.
Beterbiev and Alvarez also both work with Montreal’s Yvon Michel. A clash between the two might not be realistic. A fight with Gvozdyk could be.
Hurdles exist.
The WBC, just more than a month after Gvozdyk unseated Stevenson, crowned an interim titlist in the Marcus Browne-Badou Jack contest underneath Manny Pacquiao-Adrien Broner. Does that mean Gvozdyk versus Browne? The WBC has already ordered the mandatory but, well, Alvarez is all the evidence we need to say that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
In Gvozdyk, Alvarez could find a chance to add history’s title to his mantle whether Gvozdyk still had the WBC belt or not. He’d also have the chance to beat the man who beat the man who wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.
That’s an easy story to sell. We don’t know if it will be the story boxing tells. All we know for sure is, this weekend, Alvarez has to find a way to beat Kovalev a second time. Opportunity knocks again. We’ll never know whether he could have been more long ago.
Without a win this weekend, he won’t have much chance to prove his place as possibly the best light heavyweight in the world going forward.
Cliff Rod is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
