Marquez vs Alvarado will have catchweight, says Alvarado's manager

Manager Henry Delgado says that a potential May 17 fight between his client Mike Alvarado and Juan Manuel Marquez will have a catchweight of 144 pounds, with Alvarado moving up from 140 and Marquez staying right about in his comfort zone. The 40-year-old Mexican legend weighed 143 for his win over Manny Pacquiao in December 2012, and 144½ in his loss to Timothy Bradley last October.

"The fight would be at 144 pounds, but it doesn't matter. Alvarado will do well at the weight, because he is bigger than Marquez. I hope that by next week they will make an official announcement," Delgado said. "Anyone who thinks that Alvarado will be easy for Marquez is very wrong. After beating Marquez, we would want a rematch with Provodnikov and with Rios. When [Alvarado] is well trained he can beat anyone."

Alvarado (34-2, 23 KO) has had a five-fight run of really hard outings, going 3-2 with wins over Breidis Prescott, Mauricio Herrera, and Brandon Rios in a rematch, and losses to Rios the first time around and Ruslan Provodnikov, who beat Alvarado down on October 19 of last year.

A fight with Marquez (55-7-1, 40 KO) kind of goes to show what kind of fighter Mike Alvarado really is. Conventional wisdom might be to take a tune-up fight or even a couple of them to give his body something of a rest while keeping him active, but the money's right, apparently, and this is a big opportunity for Alvarado. An upset of Marquez, and he's right back in the mix to face, say, the Pacquiao-Bradley winner, or the Provodnikov-Rios winner, if that fight happens.

For Marquez, the fight appears mostly a placeholder (at least in terms of his intentions), as he turned down the opportunity to fight Provodnikov, citing a lack of significance. In reality, if Marquez had dropped down to 140 for that fight, he could have won an actual world title at that weight, rather than the interim title he won for beating Serhiy Fedchenko in 2012, which he claims as a full world title. Marquez has won belts at 126, 130, and 135, but only an interim belt (that he never defended) at 140, and he's 0-2 in world title fights at 147.