In the co-main event for the Adonis Stevenson versus Thomas Williams Jr. in Quebec, Canada on July 29, Quebec’s own Light Heavyweight contender Eleider “Storm” Alvarez met New Zealand’s Robert “The Butcher” Berridge in the ring for 10 rounds.
Alvarez was originally supposed to meet with Chad “Bad” Dawson, but due to a last minute injury, Berridge was given the fight on nearly a week’s notice.
The fight opened slow, and stayed that way through the first five rounds. Alvarez used his superior reach to keep the shorter Berridge on the outside and opened a small cut on Berridge’s right eye in the third due to constant jabbing. It wasn’t until Berridge stole the sixth round that the fight picked up.
Alvarez began to focus less on solely countering all of The Butcher’s punches, and got slightly more aggressive. Berridge showed heart by surviving through the first half of the bout and attempting to keep up with the pace of Alvarez, but Alvarez was simply the better fighter.
In the 10th round, Alvarez seemed to listen to ringside announcer and Heavyweight contender Antonio Tarver’s advice and opened up more, showing himself willing to take Berridge’s punches to lure him into a false sense of security before countering and throwing harder shots in response.
At the end of the night, Aleider Alvarez came out on top by unanimous decision with all three scorecards having judged the bout 99-91 in his favor.
A lot of talk arose about Alvarez possibly becoming the mandatory challenger for the WBC champion if he looked good enough against Berridge.
After seeing how he fared against Berridge however, even though he came out a clear victor, many turned and began to wonder if he was a skillful enough fighter to survive against someone like Adonis Stevenson or Thomas Williams Jr.
Photo by Dave Nadkarni/PBC
