By Austin Killeen June 26, 2016           Featured Image by Robert Hughes of Fight News

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On Saturday at the Bomb Factory in Dallas, Texas Josh “Pitbull” Torres (15-5-2, 7 KO’s) 147 ¾ lbs. of Albuquerque, NM lost a MD to Mike Alvarado (36-4- 0, 24 KO’s) 147 ¾ lbs. of Denver, CO. The fight was televised live on UniMas and proved to be an entertaining contest between two well conditioned athletes. For the ageing Alvarado it represented an opportunity to rebuild his career which had fallen on hard times. For Torres it represented an opportunity to grab the proverbial brass ring, but this contest wasn’t taking place on a carousel; and the Bomb Factory is not an amusement park. When the ride was over there was no ring on the second finger of Pitbull’s right hand.

Except for the ring introductions and the official verdict by Lupe Contreras the entire contest was in Spanish. My Spanish is limited to the few words I’ve picked up in the boxing gyms around the “Duke City.” Fortunately the opinions of one of the ringside commentators were posted on the screen after each round. This gave the viewer an idea of how the commentators felt the bout was progressing. Except for the first round I found myself in agreement with the score posted after each stanza.

In the opening round Torres was very relaxed and controlled the action from the outside. I found this a little surprising because Alvarado enjoyed a 4” reach advantage. Torres was landing his jab repeatedly and following up with right hands to the head. At times Torres also landed some impressive right crosses to the rib cage of Alvarado. Alvarado did land some shots to the head of Torres, but they lacked power. They only surprise came when the commentator awarded the opening round to Alvarado. Apparently he was watching the fight on his car radio.

In round two Alvarado started pressing the attack more, trying to fight on the inside. Torres would counter with right hand leads, left uppercuts and left hooks to the body. It appeared to me that Alvarado had lost the opening two rounds, getting beat both on the outside and the inside. Torres was scoring with an assortment of clean punches, although they lacked power. Torres continued to control the fight in the third round, both at long range and on the inside. He was landing the cleaner punches while Alvarado was ineffective with his.

In the fourth round Alvarado finally started to break through Torres’ defense. He stopped winging his punches from the outside, instead shortening there arc which made them more accurate. Additionally, Alvarado started scoring with left jabs and overhand rights of his own. Like Torres in the opening three rounds, Alvarado started mixing things up a bit by landing uppercuts on the inside. Torres was firing back but clearly the round belonged to Alvarado. The fifth and sixth rounds were a repeat of the fourth, but much closer as Torres was punching back and scoring with his jab. Alvarado was landing his jab and an overhand right with effect on the inside. I noticed blood on the face of Torres but could not figure out where it was coming from. The ringside commentators probably explained it, but my lack of Spanish kept me from understanding the cause of the blood.

In rounds seven and eight Alvarado pressed the attack, perhaps sensing he might be on the wrong side of the score cards. He was able to trap Torres on the ropes on several occasions, something he failed to do in the first six rounds. Torres put on a display of power in the final seconds of the last round, something he probably should have done much earlier. Although I had the fight a draw, Alvarado fights for Top Rank so I didn’t have a good feeling about the decision going to Torres. When Lupe Contreras read the score cards, he read the 76-76 score card first, followed by the other two scores of 78-74 and 77-75 both in favor of Alvarado.

I was impressed with the performance of Torres both on offense and defense, he was very confident scoring both on the outside and inside. Several rounds were very close and if you awarded them to one boxer you suddenly had a wider margin in the final verdict. I clearly have no idea how anyone could give the opening round to Alvarado, but the judge who had a score of 78-74 might well have. Torres certainly didn’t hurt his value by his performance on Saturday and clearly showed he belonged in the same ring as Alvarado. If you’re a ranked welterweight, do you want to chance a fight with Torres? The “Pitbull” is clearly high risk, with little reward for beating him.

Hopefully Josh will get another opportunity against a named opponent with TV exposure. Based on his performance Saturday, will a promoter step forward and offer him an exclusive contract? I would because he has a fan friendly style, and the ability to take his fan base on the road as he has proven in his last two contracts. The next few weeks should be interesting in the life of Josh “Pitbull” Torres.