By Stanley White: Former WBA lightweight champion Brandon ‘Bam Bam’ Rios (34-3-1, 25 Kos) says he’ll be fighting Danny ‘Swift’ Garcia (33-1, 19 KOs) in January in either New York or Los Angeles. Rios says he expects to find out in the next 2 weeks from his lawyer the specific date and venue for where he’ll be fighting the 29-year-old Garcia.
This is not a great fight. Danny Garcia should be fighting better opposition than this at this point in his career.
Rios, #15 WBC, says he was supposed to fight Garcia in December, but the money wasn’t right for the two of them. Right now, Rios is waiting for the money to come through for him and Garcia to mix it up in January. Rios says he’s going to focus on his training and let his lawyer/adviser handle all the details in arranging the fight with Garcia, 2 WBA, #2 WBC, who hasn’t fought since his 12 round split decision loss to WBA welterweight champion Keith ‘One Time Thurman earlier this year on March 4.
Garcia was offered a title shot against IBF welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr., but he chose not to take him up on the offer. If Garcia faces Rios instead, you must wonder about the logic of that move.
Rios isn’t a world champion like Spence. In fact, it’s been 6 years since Rios lost his WBA World lightweight title after coming in over the 135-lb. lightweight limit for his fight against John Murray on December 3, 2011.
“They’re talking about that one taking place in January,” said Rios to Fighthype about a fight with Danny Garcia. “We don’t have a specific date in January. It’ll be either here in Los Angeles or in New York. I’ll find out in the next 2 weeks. I talked to my lawyer, and he said I should find out in the next 2 weeks. We’ll see what happens. It was going to happen in December, but something about the money wasn’t right for both of us. We’re waiting for the money to come in and come through. I let my lawyer/adviser handle that for me. My job is to just get ready,” said Rios.
Rios’ boxing career has been on the downside since 2013 with him losing to Mike Alvarado, Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley. Rios also dodged a couple of bullets with controversial wins over Richar Abril and Diego Chaves. Rios didn’t look like he won the Abril fight. The referee disqualified Chaves in the 9th round for what he said was an intentional elbow to the face of Rios. It didn’t look like Chaves threw an intentional elbow. Rios was the one that was doing a lot of fouling with him using his head to stick it into the face of Chaves for the entire fight. Rios was knocked out in the 9th round by Tim Bradley in November 2015. After sitting out of the ring for a year and a half, Rios came back last June to defeat journeyman Aaron Herrera by a 7th round knockout.
Danny Garcia has been inactive since his loss to Thurman. It looks like Garcia is mainly interested in an easy fight before he gets his rematch with Thurman in 2018.