By Chris Williams: Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KO’s) sees his fight this month against Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) as a good gauge for him to see where he’s at in terms of whether he’s good enough to mix it up with the best fighters in the welterweight division or not. Rios sees Pacquiao as someone that has slipped a couple of levels due to age and ring wear, so if he loses to him on November 23rd then it’ll give Rios a good indication that he shouldn’t bother fighting guys at this level.
Rios told Hustleboss “I want to test myself against Pacquiao to see where I’m at.”
Rios said that if he gets beaten badly then it’ll mean that he should be fighting lesser guys than Pacquiao.
Pacquiao and Rios will be fighting for the vacant WBO International welterweight title. It ‘s not the belt that Pacquiao and Rios would likely prefer to be fighting over, but that’s all they could get because the WBO 147 lb. title is held by Tim Bradley, and the other three welterweight titles – IBF, WBC, and WBA – are all held by Golden Boy Promotions fighters.
Even if Rios does get beaten by Pacquiao, it still won’t mean that Rios doesn’t have the ability to mix it up with the best fighters in boxing. It just means that he’s fighting in the wrong division. Rios should be fighting at 140, and not 147. He doesn’t have the kind of speed, power or size to be a special fighter at 147. Rios is slow, he’s got decent power, and he’s not a huge guy for 147. If you put Rios in with guys like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Keith Thurman, Devon Alexander and even Adrien Broner, he would struggle. The only reasons why Rios has a chance of picking off Pacquiao is because he’s getting old and is coming off of a bad knockout loss. Pacquiao has deteriorated enough to where even an average fighter like Rios has a good chance of knocking him out cold and beating him.
This fight might not do very well on HBO pay-per-view. Bob Arum of Top Rank made the decision to stage it in Macao, China instead of the United States in order to save Pacquiao from taking a big bit on being taxed by the U.S. on th PPV money that he gets from U.S boxing fans, but the fight could end up with a lot less buys due to it not being staged in the U.S. This could be a huge blunder by Arum and Pacquiao to stage the fight outside of the U.S. The card also lacks a solid undercard to go with it. For $60 on PPV, you get to see Pacquiao-Rios, featherweights Evgeny Gradovich vs. Billy Dib, heavyweights Andy Ruiz Jr. vs. Tor Hamer and flyweights Zou Shiming vs. Juan Tozcano. I don’t see that as a PPV worthy undercard. I like Gradovich and Ruiz Jr., but I don’t like the opponents picked out for them. And I have no interest at all in seeing Zou Shiming on PPV or even ESPN. I don’t see him as a future anything.
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