Brandon Rios to fight in June, possibly against Bradley or Cotto

By Boxing News - 02/19/2015 - Comments

rios444443By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios (33-2-1, 24 KOs) will be back in action in the next four months to fight in June against an opponent still to be determined.

Rios’ promoter Bob Arum says that Rios could be facing either Tim Bradley or Miguel Cotto in his next fight. Those are just two of the possibilities. If it’s not one of them, then Arum plans on picking out some other big named opponent.

Ruslan Provodnikov and Chris Algieri are likely possibilities for Rios if Bradley or Cotto aren’t picked out for him.

“Brandon Rios will be back before the end of June,” Arum said via Fighthype.com. “We’re looking at a number of fights for him. He can fight maybe Bradley; he can fight Cotto. He’s a very exciting fighter.”

Rios wasn’t considered a really exciting fighter in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans until his recent 3rd round stoppage win over a shot-looking Mike Alvarado last January. As bad as Alvarado looked in that fight, almost any contender would have done the same thing to him. Alvarado looked flabby and ill-prepared for the fight.

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Cotto’s adviser Gaby Penagaricano and trainer Freddie Roach are currently looking at finding an opponent for him for May or June. It wouldn’t be surprising if Rios, a welterweight, is picked for Cotto to defend his WBC middleweight title against. It’ll make Cotto look bad in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans if he chooses a welterweight, especially Rios.

It was good that Rios beat a shot looking Alvarado, but the fact remains that Rios was beaten badly by Manny Pacquiao in 2013. Rios also was beaten by Alvarado in 2013. Additionally, Rios has two controversial wins over Diego Chaves and Richard Abril that should have gone against him in the eyes of many fans.

Chaves was ahead of Rios in the 9th round when the referee disqualified Chaves for a phantom elbow that he supposedly had thrown. Had the referee not disqualified Chaves, he likely would have won the fight by a 10 round decision.

Arum wanting to match Rios against a top fighter could be his downfall, because if Arum matches Rios against someone too good, then he’ll likely lose the fight badly. Bradley would very likely out-box him, and Cotto would overpower Rios with left hooks to the head.

Rios’ trainer Robert Garcia said recently that he was told that if Rios wins his next fight, he’ll be getting a rematch against Pacquiao. It’s kind of hard to believe that Arum would attempt to pass a fight off like that again, even if Rios does win his next fight against one of Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters.

I don’t think a Rios vs. Pacquiao 2 is a fight that the boxing public would go for. However, it depends on what Arum would be looking for in terms of pay-per-view sales. If he’s content with a Pacquiao-Rios fight bringing in between 300,000 to 450,000 pay-per-view buys, he might be happy. If Arum is under the illusion that a second fight between Pacquiao and Rios will bring in huge PPV numbers, he could wind up very disappointed at the numbers.



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