By Jason Kim: Having seen Brandon Rios’ victory over previously unbeaten Mike Alvarado last Saturday night, I have no doubt that lightweight contender Richard “Money” Abril (17-3-1, 8 KO’s) would have totally schooled Rios if it had been him in the ring with Rios instead of the limited Alvarado. Abril, a Mayweather clone much in the same mold as Adrien Broner, really dominated Rios last April in their fight at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

While Abril ended up the loser of that fight by a controversial 12 round split decision, most boxing fans saw Arbil as easily winning that fight with many fans seeing Abril winning by 10 rounds to 2 score. It was an embarrassingly easy fight for Abril and it was scary to see how two judges saw Rios as the winner of that fight. That was just scary and sad at the same time. The only judge that seemed to be watching the fight clearly was Adalaide Byrd, who scored it an easy 117-111 victory for Abril. Even that score was far too generous for Rios, because he really got dominated.

What made Abril so tough for Rios to fight was Abril’s Mayweather-esque fighting style with his shoulder role, his picking off punches with his gloves and shoulders, his movement and above all his pinpoint shots that he was tagging Rios with all night long.

I didn’t see any improvement at all in Rios’s game last Saturday night. The only thing that I saw was that he had the perfect opponent for him to be fighting in 32-year-old Alvarado, who stood directly in front of Rios the entire fighting trading shots. This isn’t what Abril would have done had he been in there with Rios. He would have boxed his head off much like he did last time, and Rios would have looked frustrated and silly. I don’t think the judges would have given Rios a second questionable decision, not after the heat they received last time for giving him a victory that few boxing fans agreed with.

It’s interesting that Rios and Top Rank feel that they didn’t need to have him fight Abril again to try shut down the criticism of his gift victory. Instead, they moved on and will likely never fight Abril again. Rios could end up fighting Top Rank fighter Manny Pacquiao next year in April just based on the win over Alvarado, which is pretty sad because Rios should at least fight Abril again or one of the better light welterweights in the division like Danny Garcia and Lucas Matthysse.

Alvarado was never a proven fighter to begin with. His biggest victories came against Breidis Prescott and Maurcio Herrera and he looked vulnerable in both of those fights. I can’t see Danny Garcia or Matthysse struggling against Herrera and Prescott the way that Alvarado did.

If Rios gets a shot against Pacquiao next year it’ll be an undeserved shot in the minds of many boxing fans because it’s not enough that Rios beat fellow Top Rank fighter Alvarado. He should have had to beat one of the top two light welterweights in the division and/or prove that he can beat “Money” Abril without the controversy surrounding their fight last April.