Brandon Rios' Demolition of Mike Alvarado Brings Great Trilogy to Inglorious End

There was a lot of big trilogy talk going around Saturday night.

And though HBO broadcast the fight under its second-tier Boxing After Dark banner rather than the World Championship Boxing marquee, the network thought enough of the potential for fireworks in meeting No. 3 between Mike Alvarado and Brandon Rios to dispatch its No. 1 fight-calling team.

Mic man Jim Lampley and unofficial judge Harold Lederman were there. And bearded analyst Max Kellerman would have been too, had it not been for the imminent arrival—ironically—of his third child.

But as things turned out, the action was more suited for public access than premium cable.

Thanks to Alvarado’s admitted lack of focus during training camp, the 19 rounds of memorable all-in warfare from Fights 1 and 2 fizzled into little more than a public gym session in which Rios pitched, Alvarado caught and nostalgic memories of Gatti-Ward faded quickly to Pacquiao-Morales nightmares.

“Some trilogies end with a bang, some end with more like whimper,” an understandably crestfallen Lampley moaned in the broadcast’s earlier-than-anticipated closing sequence. “This was anticlimactic.”

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The franchise’s screeching halt came in Alvarado’s chaotic corner after nine one-sided minutes, when an already bruised and wobbling fighter indicated to lead trainer Shann Vilhauer that he was unable to see Rios’ fusillade of shots coming. A brief visit from a finger-flashing ringside physician gave the local man a medically endorsed exit ramp, which became official with an arm wave from referee Jay Nady.

Subsequently, amid boos from an underwhelmed Colorado crowd, the principals did damage control.

“I wasn’t as prepared as I should have been,” Alvarado said, “and this is what I get.”

Rios, meanwhile, was caught somewhere between accepting kudos for a return leap toward relevance and conceding he had defeated a fighter who had not beaten anyone not named Brandon Rios in 33 months.

“I didn’t want it to end like this,” he said, referring to pre-fight talk that a loss might have been the final act of a 10-year career. “You see what I can do when I’m at my best. I can still perform very well.”

Alvarado’s flame-out, though, did little to prove that beyond reasonable doubt.

While he is indeed 2-1 against the Triple-A foe he now considers a “best friend,” Rios, like Alvarado, has fallen similarly short when matched against opponents who, by comparison, are on a major league level.

He trailed on two scorecards before snatching a disqualification win against top-15 welterweight Diego Chaves last August, a cosmetic triumph that came eight months after Manny Pacquiao—who’d not won a fight in two years—dominated nearly every moment of 12 rounds in a pay-per-view from China.

In fact, because his last pre-trilogy bout resulted in a split nod over Richar Abril that BoxingScene.com deemed one of 2012's worst decisions, Rios' post-Alvarado call-out of someone like Victor Ortiz (who’s not beaten anyone with fewer than 10 losses since 2011) might be a lot closer to 2015 reality.

“I’m going to leave it to my manager, and whatever he says, I’ll be ready for,” Rios said at ringside, amid a burst of mile-high optimism. “I’ve got a lot of gas left in the tank.”

Ultimately, though, his mileage will depend a lot more on how close he stays to his own speed.