Brandon Rios has little chance for title shot in near future

By Boxing News - 01/31/2015 - Comments

chaves66661122By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios is going to need to keep his sights lowered as far as his next fight goes, because the chances of him getting a title shot against any of the current welterweight belt holders is extremely low as of now.

Rios is coming off of a 3rd round stoppage win over an out of shape and shot looking Mike Alvarado. Rios’ promoter Bob Arum immediately started talking after the fight about wanting to put the 28-year-old Rios in a big fight.

Arum might not have been talking about a world title fight, but if he was he’s going to have to try and convince WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto to agree to face Rios since that’s the only real option that Rios has.

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Arum’s star fighter Manny Pacquiao, the WBO welterweight champ, will likely be fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. Rios’ trainer Robert Garcia says he was told that Rios can get another fight against Pacquiao if he wins his next fight, but you have to question whether Arum would be bold enough to make that move given how one-sided their previous fight was back in 2013.

That was only two years ago, and the boxing public hasn’t forgotten about how poor Rios was in that fight.

Rios will not be getting a shot against WBA/WBC 147lb champion Mayweather or WBA champ Keith Thurman, because both guys work with adviser Al Haymon. The only other guy left is IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook, who is facing his mandatory challenger Jo Jo Dan next March.

Unless something clears up in the near future, Rios has little chance of getting a title shot. Cotto is probably not going to want to burn up a fight facing Rios when it’s not a pay-per-view worthy fight.

It would be the perfect opponent for Cotto though, because Rios comes straight at his opponents looking to slug. Cotto have no problems landing his left hook power shots and right hands to the face of Rios.

Arum might put Rios in with Tim Bradley if he can convince Bradley it’s a worthwhile fight for him. But if Cotto chooses Bradley to fight, then Rios is going to be sitting around waiting for an opponent for a long time. That’s what I see happening.

There’s really no one that will be free for Rios to fight in the next 4 months, so he’s probably going to need to sit out of the ring for six to eight months waiting round for a big name to be free to fight him. Arum could match Rios up against Diego Chaves again to clear up the controversy over their fight last August, but Arum likely won’t do that because of the risk being too high that Rios gets dominated by the Argentinian.

If Rios loses to Chaves then Arum won’t be able to use Rios against the big names. He’ll be basically where he was before he went into the third fight with Alvarado. If Rios gets another controversial win over Chaves, then Rios’ stock will plummet in the same way it would if he were to lose the fight.



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