Brandon Rios with a lot to prove against Diego Chaves on 8/2

By Boxing News - 07/08/2014 - Comments

rios7By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios (31-2-1, 23 KO’s) will be returning to the in crucial fight on 8/2 against Diego Chaves (23-1, 19 KO’s) in a fight that Rios can’t afford to lose at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

Rios looked like a punching bag in his last two fight both of which he lost to Manny Pacquiao and Mike Alvarado. Now he’s at the point where he can’t take another loss if he wants to be able to do something with his career.

In Rios’ press conference in Los Angeles, California on Tuesday, he talked about partially about wanting to prove to fans that he still has something left. Fans are going to find out whether that’s the case because Top Rank matched him fairly tough by putting him in with the slugger Chaves. He gave Keith Thurman a lot of problems last year before losing by a 10th round TKO. Thurman had to use movement to keep out of range early in the fight after getting nailed by some big shots.

Rios probably won’t use movement, and he’s going to have to depend on his chin to get him through thi fight.

Rios said “I’m very excited to be back. It’s been eight months missing in action. People thought I was in Miami, but I wasn’t. I was in my house depressed, crying because I wanted to get in the ring and fight again. That’s what I love to do and I’m just very happy to be back to show everybody that I’m not done yet. The last two fights was, you know, it happened the way it did and that’s alright. Also I’d like to thank the Cosmopolitan for giving me the first fight to fight there and I’m very excited because it’s like breaking into the virginity for the first time, first fight there.”

Also on the August 2nd card is WBA light welterweight champion Jessie Vargas (24-0, 9 KO’s) defending his title against unbeaten Russian Anton Novikov (29-0, 10 KO’s) in a fight that is a 50-50 affair. Neither guy can punch, but Novikov is a little better at letting his hands go compared to Vargas. He doesn’t clinch constantly the way that Vargas does, and he could make it interesting just by being busier.

Vargas said “Round-by-round, I’m going to have fun and I’m going to outthink my opponent.”

Let’s hope Vargas doesn’t clinch and run all night long because some of his recent fights have very boring to watch, especially his last one against Khabib Allakhverdiev. The Vargas-Allakhverdiev fight was a real buzz kill on the Tim Bradley vs. Manny Pacquiao card.

Novikov said “I’d like to wish Jessie Vargas luck. I believe that both of us will show a very good fight.”



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