Roger Gutierrez gets revenge while claiming a WBA belt…
The 25-year-old Venezuelan boxer dropped Rene Alvarado in Round 12 to secure a narrow but unanimous decision victory to win the WBA “regular” junior lightweight title at the American Airlines Center in Dallas on Saturday.
After seeing his twin brother, Felix Alvarado, score a 10th-round stoppage win to retain his IBF junior flyweight world title earlier on the card, Rene Alvarado went on to lose the title in his first defense by scores of 113-112 on all three scorecards.
Gutierrez — who dedicated the victory to his mother, who died of cancer two months ago — dropped Alvarado three times and, crucially, won the last round.
Alvarado (32-9, 21 KOs), 31, of Nicaragua, was almost stopped in the third round but recovered from two knockdowns to control most of the fight.
Gutierrez (24-3-1, 20 KOs) avenged a seventh-round stoppage loss to Alvarado in 2017, when his corner threw in the towel after he suffered a bad cut.
Alvarado could not stay upright in the third round when Gutierrez released a sweet right uppercut to the jaw. Alvarado took the count but was on unsteady feet, and Gutierrez capitalized to drop him for a second time with a straight right that sent the Nicaraguan crashing backward.
A left hand to the temple wobbled Alvarado again, but he recovered and went on the attack in the fifth, and cut Gutierrez badly around the left eye. The fight then seemed to drift away from Gutierrez as Alvarado forced the pace in the second half, until the last round, when Gutierrez dropped Alvarado for a third count with a glancing left hook to the chin.
