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Plans to get Felix Alvarado in the ring this month have been met with resistance.
BoxingScene.com has learned that the IBF junior flyweight titlist is no longer in the mix to land on the February 19 DAZN show in Tijuana, Mexico. Alvarado was aiming to make the second defense of his title versus Mexico’s Erick Lopez in a voluntary defense. The request was rejected by the IBF since his mandatory is due along with the issue of Lope not currently ranked by the sanctioning body.
The rest of the February 19 show moves forward, with former WBO junior middleweight titlist and local hero Jaime Munguia (38-0, 30KOs) facing D’Mitrius Ballard (21-0-1, 13KOs) in a battle of middleweight contenders.
Alvarado is now left without a fight and not much in the way of a favorable option. His current mandatory challenger is Sive ‘Special One’ Nontshinga (10-0, 9KOs), who hails from Eastern Cape, South Africa. Such a fight would be dictated by how soon a deal can be reached and, of course, sorting out the travel to get Nontshinga to North America.
Such obstacles were precisely why Alvarado (37-2, 32KOs) sought a stay-busy fight in the form of a voluntary defense. Instead, the streaking 32-year-old Nicaraguan—who has won 19 in a row, all but two inside the distance—has to accept a second straight cancellation with Lopez. The two were due to fight on the undercard of an August 14 DAZN show headlined by Vergil Ortiz Jr. (18-0, 18KOs) in Frisco, Texas. Alvarado was left without an opponent when Lopez (16-5-1, 10KOs) withdrew roughly two weeks out from fight night.
Alvarado was forced to settle for a non-title fight versus Bayamon, Puerto Rico’s Israel Vazquez (10-5-2, 7KOs), whom he blasted out inside of one round. The fight was his second of 2021, having made the second defense of his title in a dominant tenth-round stoppage of former strawweight titlist DeeJay Kriel last January 2 at American Airlines Center in Dallas.
Alvarado has held the IBF junior flyweight title since an eighth-round stoppage of Randy Petalcorin in their October 2018 vacant title fight on the road in Pasay City, Philippines. Another road trip came in his first title defense, a May 2019 twelve-round decision of Reiya Konishi in his challenger’s true hometown of Kobe, Japan.
The lone two losses of Alvarado’s career came in back-to-back title fights, both in his opponents’ hometown. Alvarado dropped a twelve-round decision to then-unbeaten Kazuto Ioka in their 2013 New Year’s Eve WBA junior flyweight in Osaka, Japan. Less than six months later came a twelve-round decision to Argentina’s Juan Carlos Reveco with the same WBA 108-pound title at stake in their June 2014 clash in Benavidez, Argentina.
Alvarado’s current title reign carried a 13-plus month overlap with twin brother Rene Alvarado, who held the WBA “World” junior lightweight title from November 2019 to January 2021. Rene lost the belt to Roger Gutierrez in their rematch on the same January 2021 show that saw Felix defeat Kriel. The twins also appeared on the same DAZN show last August in Frisco, with Rene once again losing to Gutierrez one fight after Felix’s knockout of Vazquez.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox