Rene Alvarado is someone that a few years ago you would have called a gatekeeper and perhaps started to question whether he should think about hanging the gloves up. Fast forward to now and hes on an eight fight win streak and has claimed the WBA regular title at super featherweight. That regular title should really have been upgraded to become the full world title but the WBA instead gifted Leo Santa Cruz a vacant title shot.
Alvarado’s comeback story is quite inspiring as hes gone from a guy whos used as a gatekeeper for prospects to becoming in my eyes the true WBA super featherweight champion of the world. Hes picked up significant wins over Roger Gutierrez, Denis Shafikov and Carlos Morales. His best win so far was his victory over Andrew Cancio where he was a big underdog and very few people picked him to win. He dominated Cancio to the extent that he was retired by his corner before eight rounds had passed. His win over Cancio was surprising because in their first fight Cancio actually stopped Alvarado and so people expected with Cancio’s recent form that he would stop Alvarado again.
I hope Alvarado gets more big fights in the future and continues to play his part in this era of the super featherweight division. If Leo Santa Cruz moves up hopefully he gets upgraded to be full champion so that he can unify.