By Dan Ambrose: With Top Rank promoter Bob Arum opting not to put former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios (32-2-1, 23 KOs) back in with Diego Chaves to clear up the controversy of his tainted in over him from last August, Rios now could be facing former WBO light welterweight champion Mike Alvarado (34-3, 23 KOs) in January of 2015, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.
It looks like Rios will be out of the ring until then because he’s got a sprained right arm that he’s dealing with right now. But besides that, it’s probably too risky to continue to match Rios against other fighters after the way he looked against Chaves and Manny Pacquiao.
Rios has lost 2 out of his last 3 fights, and if Chaves hadn’t been suddenly disqualified in the 9th round of their fight last August by referee Vic Drakulich, Rios likely would have lost that fight as well. He was trailing at the time that Drakulich pulled the plug on the fight.
Unless Arum makes the Rios vs. Alvarado fight now, it could lose all meaning due to both fighters heading slowly towards journeyman status. Alvarado has lost his last two fights to Juan Manuel Marquez and Ruslan Provodnikov, and as I said, Rios arguably should be 0-3 in his last two fights instead of 1-2. And you can count Rios’ fight against Richard Abril in 2012 as another loss that Rios should have on his resume because he was absolutely dominated by Abril over 12 rounds, and yet he was still given a victory over the Cuban fighter. I had Rios winning 1 rounds of that fight.
“We’re talking about it, maybe in January, on HBO,” Arum told Rafael at ESPN.com.
Alvarado and Rios last fought each other in March of 2013 with Alvarado winning the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision. In their fight before that, Rios stopped Alvarado in the 7th round in October 2012.
Arum obviously recognizes the interest in a Rios-Alvarado fight, which is why he’s looking to put the two fighters back in with one another rather than waiting and risking the fans losing interest in the fight with each additional defeat the two guys suffer. There had been talk of Rios fighting Provodnikov, but Arum opted not to make that fight. You can imagine what Provodnikov would have done to Rios if that fight had been made.
First off, it wouldn’t have been a fight as big as Alvarado-Rios III, and the outcome would likely lead to less interest in a subsequent Rios-Alvarado third fight due to Rios likely being blown apart by Provodnikov.
It’s going to be interesting to see how many times Arum winds up matching Rios and Alvarado together. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the two fighters face each other 3-4 times before they retire. With neither guy being relevant in their respective divisions, Arum might as well keep matching them against each other, because he’s got to do something with them.
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