Eleider Álvarez vs Lucian Bute & Eric Martel Bahoeli vs Adam Braidwood RBR

Kind of eerie that Alvarez stopped him in the same round that Froch did!

 

Yeah, I'd say top 5 SMW. Even then I thought all the stuff about him not being in the super-6 was overrated. Top-5 is possible, but potentially best in the world? His best win was probably washed-up William Joppy.

 

Wow

 

It was the manner he was blasting people out. Multiple stone cold out KO's on normally durable opposition, beautiful body shot KO's. You couldn't ask for much more than what he was doing against the guys who would get in there with him. Some of his opposition was coming off of good wins (Brian Magee) had the balls to rematch Andrade and took him out like no one else ever had. Grachev was just coming off upsetting Silkah, so on and so forth.

He obviously wasn't consensus number one as SMW has been very, very deep for years now. But he was absolutely up there at the top of the heap.

 

I suppose he's one of those jack of all trade, master of none guys... which can really work in your favor if you're facing someone with gaps in their game.

I've seen Prieto fight a few times. He's actually fairly cagey. Maybe he just thought he couldn't win a decision and decided to go full ******...

 

Not true. They can always do Bute/Pascal 2!

 

Craziest thing is.....watching him fight all his prior fights, and his ring walks, intros, his eyes during the instructions.....you'd never think his opponent had a chance, up until he stepped out onto that stage in Nottingham, looked around at the crowd and sadness filled him, fear engorged him, and right then and there......it was OVER.

 

There's no way they would have upset the apple cart for the Bute showdown if they had given a decision to Prieto. He probably could have knocked Alvarez down 2x and still lost. The 0 is a big deal in hyping fights up.

Who knows. Fighters see things in that ring that we don't. Maybe Alvarez was breathing like a hog and Prieto truly thought he could get him out of there. I try to give fighters the benefit of the doubt and not just say "Ah, he did such and such a thing, what a dumbass."

 

He looked fine tonight. Was ahead on my card and well on his way to winning the 5th... But he opened up a bit too much and Alvarez waited for his moment and countered. I think had Bute kept it tight and stuck to throwing 1-2 punches at a time he would have taken a clear UD.

 

It was pure BS he wasn't invited. Jermain Taylor lost 3 of his last 4 going into it, and got an invite because they wanted to stick to the 3 U.S., 3 Euro fighter mix. Abraham never fought at 168 before the tournament. When fighters dropped out, they were bringing in guys he beat as replacements instead of getting him.

Bute never had an A win, but he beat B fighters who were common opponents better than the other top guys at the time did. That was enough to earn an invite if they were serious about getting the best 6 SMW's involved.

 

Have we ever seen Alvarez counter effectively before, with bad intentions actually hurting someone?

I thought he was more of a jab and straight kind of guy, with good movement and stamina.

 

Yeah never seen that from him at the world stage.

 

Anyone pick Alvarez via TKO in the league?