Junior middleweight
Retains a junior middleweight title
Records: Alvarez (37-0-1, 27 KOs); Rhodes (45-5, 31 KOs)
How far can Alvarez go? How big of a star can he become? That is the great unknown, but the potential is there for him to become one of the most significant and popular fighters in the sport. The 2010 ESPN.com prospect of the year graduated to a world title (paper as it may be) in March when he thoroughly dominated England's Matthew Hatton (the younger brother of former junior welterweight champ Ricky Hatton) to collect a vacant belt. The greatest desire for the 20-year-old, Mexico's most popular active fighter (who is also making inroads in the United States), was to return to his hometown of Guadalajara to make his first defense in front of his passionate fans. Golden Boy delivered that to him as he returned home to make a mandatory defense against England's Ryan Rhodes, 34, a legitimate contender who has spent most of his career fighting as a middleweight. Going into the fight, many believed this would be a serious test for the youngster. Alvarez aced it with flying colors in a fight even more one-sided (if possible) than the one against Hatton.
Alvarez won every single second of every single round in a dominant performance. He simply overwhelmed Rhodes with his punching accuracy and a steady ability to break him down and take away any semblance of his offense. Rhodes said going into the HBO fight that the only way to escape Mexico with the belt was to score a knockout. Rhodes, however, never really tried to attack and never took the gamble he needed that could have resulted in taking Alvarez out of his game. Instead, Alvarez punished him with both hands. He ripped off four- and five-punch combinations to the head and the body. Rhodes never had an answer of any kind. Alvarez opened cuts under both of his eyes and dropped him with a right hand behind the ear in the fourth round. By the 12th round, the outcome was clear, but Alvarez stepped up the attack and finally got Rhodes out, pouring it on until the Hector Afu stepped in to call it off at 48 seconds. Many of the middle and later rounds were a bit boring because Alvarez kept breaking Rhodes down with nothing coming back, but the knockout was a nice way to end a near-flawless performance from the kid.
The sky is the limit for him and humongous fights loom in the future. The question is how quickly will Golden Boy try to move him into those fights? One of the biggest fights in boxing will be an eventual showdown with middleweight titlist and fellow popular Mexican star Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Folks have been talking about it for the past year and the drum beat will grow louder and louder with each of their outings. That fight is most likely at least a year away (probably longer), however. Alvarez could return Sept. 17 to fight on a split-site pay-per-view telecast with Alvarez fighting as the main event in one location, possibly in Mexico again, with Victor Ortiz's welterweight title defense against Floyd Mayweather headlining the broadcast. Whatever Alvarez does there is going to be immense interest from fans and media alike and tons of money to be made.
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