If you were paying attention to the HBO triple-header Saturday night, you may have missed a showy close to the card on Azteca America. Fortunately for us, Willfrank was on the watch, flipping channels to catch junior welterweight prospect Mike Alvarado scoring the gigantic last-five-seconds knockout of Emmanuel Clottey, and he even tracked down the footage.
It didn’t look to me at first like such a big punch, despite Clottey’s severe reaction. But in slow motion, I can see why Alvarado started celebrating before Clottey hit the floor. Where he stayed for a long, long, long time. According to the Denver Post, “a fight doctor said he would be OK,” which I know WF was slightly worried about, and justifiably. Alvarado apparently had some trouble with an unwilling Clottey, who now has lost three straight, but he’s beaten a good number of people on Clottey’s level now and hopefully when he appears on the Manny Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton junior welterweight championship fight’s undercard May 2, it’ll be in a step up. (And what’s with Clottey being the victim of a last-second knockout twice in a row? Victor Ortiz, one of the stars of the HBO show Saturday night, did it to him in his last fight.)