By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA World lightweight champion Brandon Rios (29-0-1, 22 KO’s) will be back in the ring on March 3rd competing in the lightweight division in a fight that will reportedly be televised on HBO.

Rios, 25, doesn’t yet have an opponent picked out but there will be one selected by his promotional company Top Rank in the coming weeks. Rios lost his World Boxing Association title on the scales before his last fight against John Murray last December when Murray was unable to make the weight for the fight. He weighed over the 135 pound limit and subsequently lost his title.

He did, however, have no problems beating Murray by a 11th round TKO but it hurt to lose the title though. Rios been talking about moving up in weight to the light welterweight division due to his problems making weight. However, according to RingTV, Rios will stay at lightweight and will be working with a nutritionist to make sure he comes in at the correct weight for his March 3rd fight. It’s a wise decision because Rios may not be able to dominate at 140 the same way he was at the 135.

The lightweight division is pretty weak right now and Rios had it good as one of the champions. If he moves up in weight, Rios would have worry about bigger guys like Lamont Peterson and Amir Khan. He’d also have excellent fighters like Timothy Bradley, Danny Garcia, Erik Morales, Ajose Olusegun, Lucas Matthysse, Humberto Soto, Marcos Maidana, Zab Judah, Paul McCloskey, Breidis Prescott, and Mike Alvarado to worry about. Rios might be able to beat some of them but it’s doubtful he could get through all of them without suffering a couple of losses.

Mike Alvarado (32-0, 23 KO’s) has been mentioned as a possible opponent for Rios’ next fight. Alvarado fights for the same Top Rank company and they like to put their fighters in with each other for in house fights. This would be a tough fight for Rios because Alvarado, 5’9”, has a lot of power and is a little taller than the 5’8” Rios.
At some point Rios may have problems staying at 135 no matter how carefully he works with his nutritionist. At that point it’s going to be interesting to see if he can be a factor at 140.

Arum has already said that he’ll be looking to match Rios with Manny Pacquiao in 2013 as long as Rios hasn’t been beaten by anyone before that.