By Scott Gilfoid: If former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios wants to fight for a world title against IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (35-0, 24 KOs) on September 12th or instead fight on Arum’s September 26th pay-per-view card.
If Rios fights Brook on the 12th, he’d be fighting in the UK, and the fight likely would be televised during the daytime in the U.S, unless they did it on delay. If it’s going to be shown live on HBO Championship Boxing during the day time hours, it’s doubtful that it will bring in good ratings.
“Well, it’s his [Rios] choice,” Arum said to Fighthype about whether Rios wants to fight Brook or wait until September 26th to fight on Arum’s pay-per-view card. “He can fight Kell Brook on September 12th, or he can wait until September 26th and fight somebody else on our pay-per-view show.”
Arum said that Rios likely won’t be fighting Ruslan Provodnikov if he chooses to fight on September 26th, because that’s a fight that he sees taking place down the road.
It looks like Brook is waiting around right now to see if he gets the Mayweather fight on September 12th. Rios and Arum aren’t going to be able to put together a contract with Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn until they find out who Mayweather will be fighting.
I don’t think Brook has any chance of getting the Mayweather fight, but you can’t blame Rios and Hearn for sitting and waiting to find out. They’re also hoping that Amir Khan will finally give in and agree to the fight. In other words, Rios is really the third choice and they’re going to wait as long as possible before they pull the trigger on that fight.
I think Rios could give up out of frustration and go in another direction rather than being left in a holding pattern while Brook and Hearn try and figure out what they’re going to do. If I were Rios, I would move on and tell Hearn and Brook that they blew it. Rios is looking very good right now after his impressive 3rd round stoppage win over Mike Alvarado last January in their third fight of their series.
Rios should look to get the winner of the Tim Bradley vs. Jessie Vargas fight if possible. Arum is talking about wanting to match the Bradley-Vargas winner against Sadam Ali in a fight that he’s thinking of possibly staging in Dubai.
I don’t see Brook getting Mayweather or Khan. If Rios gets tired of waiting and moves on, Brook and Hearn are going to be in a bad way. I have no clue who they could get if Rios isn’t available. They don’t seem eager to face Keith Thurman, and they’ve shown no interest in wanting to face Shawn Porter again.
Now that Porter knows how to deal with fighters who clinch excessively, as he showed against Adrien Broner, Brook would be forced to actually fight Porter in close instead of clinching him for dear life when he gets inside. I see Brook losing to Porter in a rematch, and for that reason, I don’t see Hearn ever letting Porter get another fight against Brook for the remainder of his career.
If Rios gives up on the Brook fight, he can always face Diego Chaves in a rematch to prove that his poor performance against him last year was just a fluke thing. Rios-Chaves would be a good fight.
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