Félix Alvarado ruined Teeraphong Utaida (aka Fahlan Sakkreerin, Jr.), apparently...

This content is protected

This content is protected

This is a guy (Utaida/Sakkreerin, that is) who just a year before he fought Alvarado was challenging for a world title and giving Milan Melindo a very close & competitive fight in a UD12 loss. He also boasts a KO victory over Ryo Miyazaki, gave a good account of himself in points losses to Katsunari Takayama & Takuma Inoue, and drew with Tatsuya Fukuhara. So, from 2013-2016 he was at the very least, "pretty good". A pretty good international-stage fighter, however, doesn't go life & death with a Richard Ravelleza Rosales. With all due respect to Rosales, it is what it is. In two short years Utaida has gone from battling on even terms with Melindo (ranked 1st in the Philippines and 6th in the world on BoxRec, and 6th as well by the WBC and 8th by the IBF) to his countryman who is ranked eighteenth domestically and seventy-ninth in the world (on BR, not even appearing in top 40 rankings of any major org)

Safe to conclude the devastating power of Alvarado - which Sakkreerin felt and was bowled over by in three consecutive rounds in their short but violent conflict last October - is the culprit. I've been telling people for æons that Los Gemelos are blessed (genetically, one might assume, though even today medical science can't exactly pin down the mysteries of human striking power's exact origins - if there's 0% to do with heredity than having a pair of twin brothers each possess SCARILY unusual power makes for one freaky-deaky co-inky-dink...) with the kind of supreme fistic ordnance of which most fighters can but wistfully dream, enough to probably belong on top 15 p4p lists (strictly talking power rankings here, follow along ) and turn anyone's brain, in their weight range, into a smooth grey frappe. And while those family heirloom thunderbolts are enough for brother René to be a very respectable (I'd say underrated) fringe contender, Félix is a better fighter across the board, complete & well-rounded.

Alvarado's reputation is such that Hekkie Budler, newly crowned IBF champ, threw his belt away rather than make a mandatory first defense against the Nicaraguan, under the pretense of the purse bids having been insultingly low. Hekkie. Bruh. You're (forget about being a feather-fist white South African for a second) competing at light flyweight; did you forget? What kind of paydays are you expecting to demand?? Right off the bat at the start of your reign, no less? Nah. I'm not buying it. He just didn't want none of what Alvarado was dishing out, because all that was on the menu - whether he was dining in Managua or at home in Johannesburg - was a double-decker knuckle sandwich and his first KO loss.

Thankfully, his cowardice didn't abate Gemelo's march on the citadel for long, as Filipino southpaw Randy Petalcorin, ranked #3 by the IBF, has stepped in to face Alvarado in an vacant title match ordered by the IBF last month. Petalcorin is probably the Philippines' second-best light flyweight, IMO, after Melindo. In no way do I consider him a major downgrade from Budler. I am sad, however, that instead of watching Alvarado demolish the little pastel-haired gremlin, I have to watch him destroy a guy that I'm sort of a fan of (although to a much lesser extent than of Alvarado himself) and whose comeback I've been monitoring in the last couple of years, hoping that he would climb his way to a title shot. Careful what you wish for!

 

Alvarado vs. Petalcorin is October 21st, in Melbourne of all places. (which you could sort of call Petalcorin's turf, as Oz has been his professional home away from home, fighting there and specifically in the state of Victoria four times already)