By Dan Ambrose: WBA “regular” welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman (26-0, 22 KOs) doesn’t seem to think too highly of former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios (33-2-1, 24 KOs), who will be arguably getting an undeserved world title shot two months from now on November 7th against fellow Top Rank fighter WBO welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (33-1-1, 12 KOs) at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Thurman, 26, doesn’t see Rios as a fighter with good defensive skills, hand speed, punching power or talent.
“That dude got no great defense, no great speed, no great power, no great anything,” Thurman said about Rios via esnewsreporting.com. “I’ll walk right through Rios.”
Since Thurman is with adviser Al Haymon and Rios is with Bob Arum of Top Rank, I think it’s highly unlikely that either of these two fighters will ever face each other so that the boxing world can find out who the better fighter is.
What we do know is that Rios was arguably beaten by Diego Chaves last year, a fighter that Thurman scored a 10th round knockout against two years ago in July 2013. That was before Chaves with Top Rank. Now it’s probably impossible for Thurman to fight Chaves again if he had the desire to, which he obviously doesn’t.
“Yeah well, and his opponents he’s had lately in the last two fights they’re very appropriate. He’s fighting guys they’re bringing out from retirement,” Rios’ trainer Robert Garcia said via esnewsreporting.com.
Garcia is talking about Luis Collazo and Robert Guerrero, the last two fighters that Thurman has faced. Collazo isn’t retired, but he’s definitely someone who has seen better days in his career. He was briefly the WBA welterweight champion, but he lost his belt back in 2007, and he never gained it back again or any other titles.
Guerrero has won world titles in two divisions, but he’s simply not cut out for the welterweight division. He hasn’t been able to dominate in this weight class like he did at super featherweight and lightweight. Guerrero is getting up there in age at 33, and he obviously is going to need to consider what he wants to do with his career because he’s running out of opportunities.
“Let him say what he says. I think he’ll be in a tough one if he fights Brandon. He knows that,” Garcia said.
I think about the time that Rios is eventually released from his contract with Top Rank, it’ll be too late for Thurman and Rios to face each other. Rios will likely be a shot fighter by the time he’s sent packing from the promotional company if he doesn’t leave on his own accord after his contract expires with them. I don’t see that happening through. I think it’ll be Top Rank who parts ways with Rios once he no longer has anything left.
Rios needs to push Top Rank into getting him more fights to keep him busier. Rios’ fight against Bradley in November will be only the second of the year for Rios. It’s fine for a world champion to fight twice a year, but for a contender, it’s not active enough.
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