Arum interested in Brandon Rios vs. Lucas Matthysse fight

By Boxing News - 05/19/2015 - Comments

rios7By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is very careful about the guys he matches his Top Rank stable fighters against when dealing with other promotional companies. But one fight that Arum would be interested in making is a match between his guy former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios, who now barely makes 147, against light welterweight contender Lucas Matthysse of Golden Boy Promotions.

In an interview with Fighthub, Arum said that he really likes the Rios-Matthysse fight. He thinks it would be a great match-up if it were made. Now whether Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya feels the same way is unclear.

It would be a risky fight for Matthysse because he would be dealing with a larger fighter than himself in Rios, but it would be a very winnable one for him if he could handle Rios’ size advantage. What you wouldn’t want to see is Rios rehydrating to 160+ after the two make weight at a catch-weight of 144, and then Matthysse at a huge weight disadvantage.

“Rios-Matthysse would be a sensational fight,” Arum said via Fighthub.com.
When asked if he’d be interested in matching Matthysse against his No.1 money fighter Manny Pacquiao, Arum said “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

It’s interesting that Arum is willing to match Rios against Pacquiao but not Matthysse. At this point in Pacquiao’s career he’d be lucky if he could beat a fighter like Matthysse because it would be a dangerous fight for Pacquiao. He looked really bad in his recent fight against Mayweather, and he might not be able to beat a prime fighter.

Up until he was matched against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Pacquiao had been doing well beating Arum’s Top Rank fighters, but he hadn’t fought anyone good since his loss to Juan Manuel Marquez. Pacquiao had padded his record against the likes of Rios, Chris Algieri and Tim Bradley, but he’d not fought any real quality fighters.

At this point I’m not sure that a catch-weight fight between Rios and Matthysse would be a doable one at welterweight because Rios is getting up there in weight. If they did agree to a fight between them, there would have to be a huge weight penalty involved in case Rios came in over the limit. It would be really difficult for Matthysse if he had to fight a much bigger Rios in a fight at welterweight instead of fighting in the light welterweight division. I don’t see Rios as being able to make 140 any longer without being totally drained, so that would not be a fight that could be made. The only question is whether Matthysse would be open to fighting the welterweight/junior middleweight sized Rios. The money would have to be big



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