Brandon Rios to resume his career

By Boxing News - 01/23/2016 - Comments

rios100By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA 140lb champion Brandon “Bam Bam” Rios (33-3-1, 24 KOs) says he plans on getting back into the ring to resume his pro boxing career after having thought about what went wrong in his last fight against WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley.

An out of shape Rios was knocked down twice with body shots and stopped in the 9th round by Bradley, who isn’t considered a big puncher by any means. Rios came into the fight an out of shape 170lbs after making the 147lb limit the day before.

Rios put on 23 pounds overnight and stepped inside the ring as a light heavyweight the night of the Bradley fight. Unlike Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, who does well despite putting on huge amounts of weight after he rehydrates, Rios was sluggish, tired looking, and far too slow to compete with Bradley.

“After I had time to think about it, I want to end my love for this sport in boxing the way I started, fighting strong and with everything I had,” Rios said on his Facebook. “I didn’t train right last time and was not able to bring my best, letting myself and my fans down. Now I’m back at the gym getting in shape, before I even do training camp, with a renewed passion for my sport and fans. Strong basics and some new twists to up my game and when it’s time to end on my terms of hard work and victorious.”

The news of the 29-year-old Rios talking about wanting to make a comeback will likely make Top Rank promoter Bob Arum extremely happy, because it will allow him to use Rios for some of his mixing and matching with his Top Rank stable. Arum could use Rios as an opponent for Top Rank fighters like Terence Crawford, Jessie Benavidez, Felix Verdejo and possibly even Mike Alvarado.

Rios has already fought Alvarado three times and gotten the better of him in two of those fights. Alvarado recently said he was going to resume his own career. I’m sure that Arum would love to put Rios and Alvarado back inside the ring. The casual boxing fans might not remember how poor Alvarado look in his last fight against Rios last year in January, and it’s possible that the fight could bring in good ratings on HBO.

Rios really doesn’t belong at 147 in my view. He would be better off taking off weight and fighting at 140 or 135. The problem is I don’t think Rios can make weight for those divisions, because he puts too much weight on in between fights.

YouTube video

Taking all that weight off during his training camps turns them into de facto fat farms for Rios. That’s no good. If Rios has to burn through 30 pounds of fat during training camp, he’s not going to be able to focus on his training like he needs to. At this point, I doubt that Rios could even make 135 or 140 even if he trained year round and monitored his diet at all times. I think Rios has outgrown those divisions.

Unfortunately for Rios, I don’t think he’s got the hand speed, power or talent to fight at a high level at 147. Rios’ main advantage was his weight when he was fighting in the lightweight division. Like Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Rios excelled when he had a big weight advantage over his opponents. When the weight advantage was taken away from him after he moved up in weight, he stopped dominating.

YouTube video



Comments are closed.