A fight between Mike Alvarado and Ruslan Provodnikov on October 19th is close to being finalized. A fight of the year candidate on paper, now is just waiting for the fighters to negotiate the money issues. Alvarado in his post fight interview after his win over Brandon Rios, expressed his interest in wanting to fight and defend his interim WBO title in front of his hometown fans in Denver, Colorado.
Alvarado feels that he’s being offered less money to fight Provodnikov then he’s earned as a Champion. Earlier this week Alvarado took to Twitter to give his side of the story “My last 4 fights been fight of the year candidates. I’m grateful to Top Rank but it’s my turn to get paid like a world champ”. Alvarado continued “Let’s put it this way. I’m not gonna take A LOT less money to fight Provo than Tim Bradley did. I’ve been in war after war. I’m just as good”.
Both Alvarado and Provodnikov have been in exciting and fight of the year type fights. Alvarado had two tremendous battles with Brandon Rios, losing the first fight by a 7th round TKO. Alvarado avenged his first career loss, to win a 12 round unanimous decision over Rios five months later. Most recently Provodnikov went life and death with Timothy Bradley. Provodnikov dropped Bradley and gave a spirited effort, but walked away with a unanimous decision loss. It is worth noting that many fans feel that Provodnikov did enough to earn the victory decision over Bradley.
Both fighters have agreed to the fight, but the contracts are not yet signed. There isn’t a more exciting fight right now these two fighters could take. In what would be undoubtedly a war of heart and attrition, this fight will have all fans both diehard and casual, eager to tune into the battle.
