By Jason Kim: Brandon Rios (29-0-1, 22 KO’s) will be looking to get closer to grabbing back his lost WBA lightweight title in his fight next Saturday on April 14th against #1 WBA Richard Abril (17-2-1, 8 KO’s) on HBO PPV. This is a good fight for Rios, because he’s got a fighter in Abril that will show him a completely different look from any of his past opponents.

Abril, 29, is a highly skilled Cuban who relies mostly on his boxing skills and movement rather than his power like most of Rios’ past opponents. Abril will use movement and smarts to try and out-box the 25-year-old Rios. Abril knows that he can’t Rios by trying to mix it up with him the way some of Rios’ victims Urbano Antillon, Miguel Acosta, John Murray, Anthony Peterson and Omri Lowther attempted to do and were blasted out. Abril won’t fall into that same trap and will use movement to get around Rios’ big shots.

Up until his last fight, Rios was the World Boxing Association World lightweight champion from February 26th to December 2nd 2011. Rios lost his title on the scales when he was unable to make the 135 pound limit during the weigh-in for his fight against challenger John Murray. Rios would lose his title, but win the fight by an 11th round TKO win. He looked okay, but not great in the fight, and was hit a lot. They blamed his poor performance on Rios battle to try and get down in weight. He wasn’t eating or drinking water to try and get down to the weight. It didn’t work and the title was stripped from him.

Losing his WBA title hurt Rios, but it wasn’t fatal because there’s no real threat to him in the lightweight division now that Juan Manuel Marquez has moved up in weight to the light welterweight division. The titles can come and go, that’s no big deal. Rios will soon collect it back up.