If you ask Denver’s Mike Alvarado, the blood that stained his white glove tape red and splattered out of the ring like a Gallagher show looked worse than it felt. For dramatic effect, though, it made great theater.
His lower lip split open and right eye gashed, Alvarado had one final three-minute round to
“Blood was pouring down the kid’s face. He was trailing on all the scorecards. His only chance was a knockout,” Bob Arum, CEO of Top Rank Boxing, the promoter of the fight, said that night. “Then from nowhere, he gets a knockout. It’s like a ‘Rocky’ movie. It doesn’t happen in real life. That was as dramatic as you can get.”
It wasn’t Alvarado’s first big knockdown — at 32-0 with 23 KOs, he’s known as a head-hunting knockout specialist — but the victory pushed him from junior welterweight contender to box-office draw.
On Saturday, Alvarado returns to the ring, again in Las Vegas, against California’s Mauricio Herrera (18-1, 7 KOs) at The fight is part of a who’s-who pay-per-view card that also features Juan Manuel Marquez and Brandon Rios.
“It was a good learning experience. It taught me a lot about myself,” Alvarado said Thursday from Las Vegas. “I was cut, I was swallowing a lot of blood. It tested my heart a lot. It showed I have to dig deep, really let it all out.”
Alvarado has stopped opponents early in 10 of his past 12 fights. The 31-year-old is ranked as high as No. 3 in the world by the WBO.
To prepare for Herrera, Alvarado moved his training camp from Colorado to Los Angeles to spar against former light middleweight champion Sergio Mora, among others.
“Mora is a good, crafty boxer,” Alvarado said. “It was a different type of sparring. He took different angles, and he was a lot harder to hit. It helped with my timing. It taught me I can’t just walk in and rush at a guy.”
Alvarado’s practice rounds, against fighters who’ve already made names for themselves, should help him against Herrera, he said.
“He uses awkward angles,” Alvarado said of Saturday’s opponent. “He has a good, snappy jab. But once we get in the ring and styles clash, it’s about making those adjustments. I don’t see too much of a problem.”
Last year, Herrera twice won nationally televised bouts on ESPN’s “Friday Night Fights,” over Russia’s Ruslan Provodnikov in January and Mike Dallas Jr. in June.
Alvarado, though, is hitting his stride.
“I don’t think (Alvarado) was an up-and-comer,” Top Rank president Todd DuBoef told reporters this week. “He was a man from the beginning.”
Nick Groke: 303-954-1015 or ngroke@denverpost.com
