DENVER – Afterwards, when “Mile High” Mike Alvarado, still adorned in throwback-Broncos orange and blue, an egg-shaped contusion over his right eye, claimed he considered his own health before round 11, before somehow indicating to referee Tony Weeks he could not continue, from his stool, he was being honest but not telling the truth about how his match with Russian challenger Ruslan Provodnikov ended in KO-10. What Alvarado hoped to do with such a claim, instead, was regain a dash of control from a moment of combat that snatched it from him verily and placed his vanquisher, an amiable, off-kilter Siberian, near the very top of boxing’s tacitly kept Most Feared list.
At the conclusion of round 10, after a closing 10 seconds in which every punch Provodnikov struck him with, wherever he struck him, visibly pained Alvarado, making him wretched and fragile, Alvarado stumbled to the nearest corner, the wrong one, draped himself over the turnbuckle and began a search for handlers. Shann Vilhauer, Alvarado’s chief second and a man who used the moments after his charge was stopped either to fire a parting shot in claiming Alvarado devised a strategy for himself Vilhauer did not approve, or try to keep himself in the inevitable makeover-training sweepstakes – “back to basics!”, “remind Mike how he got here!” – had to throw a net of words and arms over Alvarado to haul him across the ring to where a man of any lucidity whatever should have gone unassisted.
Vilhauer was trapped in a moment, a combination of thinking his man was unstoppable by others (Brandon Rios, remember, never felled Alvarado) and worrying his future income stream would be stopped by stopping a match that stopped needing to continue at least 70 seconds before, and so he went about his between-rounds chores like nothing much had happened. Tony Weeks brought adult supervision to the moment, forcing his way deeper and deeper in Alvarado’s corner, forcing Alvarado’s attention for the prizefighting equivalent of “blink once for no and twice for no.”
The end brought Provodnikov unfiltered glee and most of the other 7,000 or so folks gathered at 1stBank Center a thing that tilted reliefways in a disappointment-to-relief balance. Though 1stBank Center is not in this city proper, it is in a suburb of this rough, weird, enjoyable metropolis, a place whose young residents seem not potheads so much as shroomers, residents of a place that set for itself this goal while extending Denver Art Museum: Erect the first great building of the 21st century. And with architect Daniel Libeskind’s awkward genius, city planners’ audacity, and nearly as many obtuse angles as titanium panels, DAM met its mark with the Frederic C. Hamilton Building.
Provodnikov beat to spiritually unrecognizable this city’s native son, a Denver cowboy, a fearless hombre from the 303, tatted and rapsheeted, one who wore open, bottle-shard facial wounds while he unmanned Brandon Rios in March – the sort of person who needlessly carries within himself a very dark place and visits regularly with those who know its coordinates. Provodnikov found the dot of fragility within such a man’s soul, the camouflaged doorway that hides a cavern filled to bursting with betrayal and violation and vilest injustices, and then smashed that dot till it became a hole gaping enough to put an eight-ounce glove through.
The fight’s fortune was told in its first minute, Saturday, when Alvarado’s demeanor was far too stiff for a titlist in his 36th prizefight, and Provodnikov’s demeanor was not nearly stiff enough for a man gone to another’s hometown in pursuit of a first meaningful title. Provodnikov’s first right cross made Alvarado wince in a way that made Alvarado’s intelligent face – and it is that, however he’s learned to mask it – impart a thought like: Yup, this is going to be bad as feared. That Alvarado’s back was to his corner when that wince came is all that might explain Shann Vilhauer’s later contention Alvarado, buried in an avalanche of his own press clippings (and cheers to that quaint analogy), was wrong to devise a defensive strategy in training camp.
Alvarado knew instantly he would not be able to win any fair exchange with Provodnikov, a man whose vicious assault of Mile High Mike bore no sign of animosity whatever, a man who probably would have gone so far as to stop punching Alvarado had the champ told him he needed a few seconds pause to weigh options, a man Pacquiao-esque in his enchantment with knuckles sunken in flesh. An instant after Alvarado’s instant calculation was complete Provodnikov got word, an instant message of sorts, Alvarado was removing from consideration fully half the offensive tactics for which Provodnikov prepared, and by round 2 the Russian was marching straight at Alvarado, feet squared in the international symbol for “I’m willing to be hit!”
Alvarado, a famous athlete in these parts, tried to switch identities on the fly, becoming a southpaw, hopping forwards with lead uppercuts, belligerently dropping his left hand in homage to the righthand-feasting way that got him stopped by Brandon Rios a year ago. It confused Provodnikov, some, enough anyway to let Alvarado get a few licks in, with this caveat: Provodnikov knew if he could merely touch Alvarado 10 or so times every three minutes, he would break Alvarado before 36 of them were up.
A right cross to Alvarado’s body in round 8 pained him too deeply to smile or shrug at; had someone stopped the match at that instant, before the two knockdowns, before the six minutes of assault that succeeded them, it would have served a buffet of vicarious rage to boxing’s legion of malcontents but not altered the outcome. Alvarado was, after that punch, indulging a profoundly masochistic impulse, not fighting. Bless Tony Weeks for temporarily sparing the man from his troubled self.
Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com