By Scott Gilfoid: Despite former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios (33-2-1, 24 KOs) having lost two out of his last four fights, Rios could be getting a world title shot later this year against IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (34-0, 23 KOs) if Brook gets past his next title defense against #5 IBF Frankie Gavin (22-1, 13 KOs) on May 30th at the O2 Arena in London, UK.
Rios’ promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank is interested in matching Rios against Brook. Eddie Hearn, the promoter for Brook, is reportedly interested in putting together the Brook-Rios fight, and he’s rumored to be interested in making the fight a pay-per-view bout on Sky Box Office.
It’s hard to imagine paying to see Brook fight a guy who has lost 2 out of his last 4 fights in Rios. That doesn’t quite make sense, especially if you consider that one of Rios’ two wins came against Diego Chaves, a fighter who was suddenly disqualified in the 9th round against Rios for throwing a phantom elbow. Chaves was ahead at the time that the fight was stopped with only round remaining.
Had the fight gone to the scorecards, Chavez likely would have won the fight. As such, you can make an argument that Rios has lost 3 out of his last 4 fights. I don’t see how Hearn could make Brook vs. Rios fight a PPV bout, not with Rios having a record like that. Heck, they might as well drag Paulie Malignaggi into the ring and have him fight Brook on PPV, because Malignaggi also has 2 losses in his last 3 fights, and that’s pretty much the record that Rios has.
“Brandon Rios is going to maybe fight Kell Brook this year. We’ve got a lot of activity. And after Manny knocks out Mayweather, then we’ll look for a suitable opponent for Manny to fight in November,” Arum said via Thaboxingvoice.com.
Brook is coming off of a 4th round stoppage win over #1 Jo Jo Dan last March in a horrible mismatch that was painful to watch. After that slaughter, it was thought that Brook would step it up and face the likes of Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter [again], Diego Chaves, or Marcos Maidana, but instead Hearn opted to go soft again by putting Brook in with fellow Matchroom Sport fighter Gavin, who was beaten just last year by Leonard Bundu. The International Boxing Federation gave Gavin a high ranking despite his recent loss to Bundu. That was kind of hard to understand. Bundu beats Gavin, yet the IBF ranks Gavin above Bundu. I don’t understand that at all.
Matching Brook against Rios will essentially give Brook his third straight soft opponent. Brook has been blabbing left and right about how he wants Amir Khan, yet he’s not fighting the guys that he needs to fight in order to get a fight against him. I mean, I don’t think Khan rates a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Manny Pacquiao based on the weak opposition that he’s been fighting for the past two years, but I think Brook’s opposition has been even worse and I don’t see him rating a fight against Khan.
Comments are closed.