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Canelo Alvarez sees brother Ricardo win U.S. debut

Fighters Network
14
Dec

SAN ANTONIO — Junior welterweight Ricardo “Dinamita” Alvarez, the 32-year-old older brother of Mexican star Canelo Alvarez, won his American debut by majority decision over Rod Salka, with his 23-year-old sibling at ringside on Saturday night at the Alamodome.

“There was no pressure. I’m glad that my brother came here to support me, and to be with his family,” said Ricardo. “But there was no pressure. I was able to separate myself from that.”

Alvarez (23-2-3, 14 knockouts) had gone 12-1-1 with nine knockouts in his previous 14 bouts. The fight with Salka (18-3, 3 KOs) took place on the undercard of a Showtime-televised quadrupleheader featuring WBA welterweight titleholder Adrien “The Problem” Broner against hard-hitting Marcos Maidana.

“I’m generally happy with my performance. I came out victorious,” said Alvarez. “But I certainly think that there are things that I can improve on. Of course, I would like to fight here again.”



Alvarez entered the ring with a heavy heart in the wake of camp member and former titleholder Javier “Chatito” Jauregui’s death on Wednesday.

A former Golden Boy fighter who earned the IBF’s lightweight title with an 11th-round stoppage of Levander Johnson in November of 2003, Jauregui, 40, had a stroke on Tuesday and died the next day.

“This was hard to do, because he was a really close friend. This was a tough week for us. We’ve known him forever, it seems, ever since we first started boxing,” said Alvarez.

“But life goes on. We had to tough it out and keep going, but it was really hard for us. I am sure that if he had been here, that he would have been happy with my performance and that he would have had no criticism at all.”

Canelo Alvarez is slated to compete on March 8, July 26 and Nov. 22 of 2014. Potential opponents are Miguel Cotto, Carlos Molina, Erislandy Lara and Sergey Rabchenko.

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