Rios-Provodnikov possible for November

By Boxing News - 08/21/2014 - Comments

rios7By Dan Ambrose: Top Rank Promotions appear to be moving their fighter Brandon Rios (32-2-1, 23 KOs) forward with his career without having him clear up the stink of his 9th round disqualification win over Argentinian Diego Chaves on August 2nd.

According to The Sweet Science, there’s discussion about Rios fighting former 140 pound strap holder Ruslan Provodnikov (23-3, 16 KOs) in November. I guess the idea is if Rios is going to get beaten by anyone, it might as be a guy that will guarantee decent ratings.

If Top Rank to put Rios back in with Chaves, Rios would likely get beaten and the fight would draw less than huge ratings.

If the Rios-Provodnikov fight gets signed, I predict Rios taking a beating in the process of getting knocked out by Provodnikov.

It’s hard to understand how Top Rank isn’t going to let Rios try and clear up the stain of his last fight against Chaves, because that’s an fight that there really needs to be a rematch so that Rios can show that he can win without controversy.

The referee that worked that fight Vic Drakulich disqualified Chaves in 9th round for an elbow that he threw. Replays showed Chaves hadn’t thrown an elbow. The thing is Rios was behind in the fight and there was only one more round to go. Drakulich had earlier taken a point away from Chaves for holding in the 3rd round, which is a very early round for any referee to be taking points away.

Chaves had held 9 times in the 3rd round when the point was taken away. He hadn’t holding a lot, which is the weird part. You can understand a referee taking a point off if a guy is clinching over 10 times every round for like 7 or 8 rounds, but that’s not what happened in the Rios-Chaves fight.

Chaves held two times in the 1st round and three times in the 2nd round. In the 3rd round, Chaves held 9 times. That’s a decent number, but it was still so early in the fight and Chaves hadn’t been clinching a lot in the first two rounds. The disqualification of Chaves basically saved Rios’ career because he would heading towards a decision loss.

Drakulich failed to do anything about Rios ramming his head into the face of Chaves each time he clinched. I wonder if Rios will be sticking he had into the face of Provodnikov too? Hopefully not, because sooner or later, Rios is going to be in the ring with a referee that actually takes points away for head-butting and he’ll find himself losing the fight just by him ramming his opponents like a Billy goat.



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