Alvarado, Korobov Victorious on UniMas

Mike Alvarado continued his comeback campaign Saturday night but he didn’t look anything like a prime “Mile High” Mike. The former world champion struggled mightily early against Josh Torres, who proved to be much tougher than the Denver native might have expected.

Torres (15-5-2, 7 KOs) was aggressive in the first half of the fight and took the fight to Alvarado. But by the time the midway point of the bout had come, “Mile High” Mike had found his rhythm and seized control of the action. But even as Alvarado began to land harder punches in the latter stages of the tussle, Torres never backed down and kept it close until the end.

Alvarado (36-4, 24 KOs) didn’t score any knockdowns in the fight and though he landed plenty of clean punches to the head and body of the New Mexico combatant, he couldn’t put him away either. In the end, two judges had it for Alvarado 78-74 and 77-75, which offset the third judge’s tally of 76-76 to escape with a majority decision inside the Bomb Factory down in Dallas.

2008 Russian Olympian Matt Korobov (26-1, 13 KOs) dominated Texan and fellow middleweight Brian Vera (23-11, 14 KOs) over eight rounds, winning a lopsided unanimous decision. Korobov knocked his foe off his feet twice in the first and again in the second, but Vera kept climbing back to his feet and hung until the final bell. Torres was felled again in the eighth but by that time it was simply mathematic: Korobov won via tallies of 78-70 and 79-69 (twice).

Also on the UniMas-televised card, junior lightweight Erick De Leon (13-0, 7 KOs) stopped two-time Olympian Carlos Valcarcel in the sixth after dropping him thrice. De Leon scored knockdowns in the first, third and sixth rounds and after pummeling Valcarcel (14-8-4, 5 KOs) badly in the sixth, the Puerto Rican’s corner had seen enough and threw in the towel. The official end came at 2:18 of the frame.