By Chet Mills: Unbeaten super featherweight prospect Brandon Rios (18-0, 12 KOs) easily destroyed a badly over-matched Sandro Marcos (27-19-2, 23 KOs) in the 2nd round of a scheduled eight-round bout on Friday night at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Rios, 22, the 2004 United States Amateur Featherweight champion, dropped Marcos four times in the fight, with one of them coming in the 1st round from a big left hook to the body, and then three more knockdowns occurring one after another in the 2nd round leading to the fight being stopped by referee Toby Gibson at 2:13 of the 2nd.
Rios seemed to hurt Marcos with every punch that he threw in the fight, and had him in clear danger early in the first round. Marcos, 34, however, fought hard, throwing wide body shots with both hands as he briefly attempted to take the fight to the much higher classed Rios early in the 1st round. Marco’s brief moment of offensive fireworks died out almost immediately as Rios turned on his own offensive attack, ripping hook so the body and head of Marcos and causing him to cringe and flinch with each powerful shot that would land on him.
While attempting to throw a shot early in the 1st, Marcos was dropped by an excellent left hook to the body by Rios. Marcos got up slowly at 8, barely beating the count, and the fight was allowed to continue. Rios looked barely interested in taking him out, and instead seemed to want to prolong the fight for as long as he could so he could perhaps get in some more practice on Marcos. For the remainder of the 1st round, Rios threw mostly body shots and seemed to completely ignore landing anything to the head of Marcos. It didn’t matter as hard as Rios was throwing, because he was creating big problems for Marcos with his body shots.
In the second round, Rios dropped Marcos with a huge left to the midsection early in the round. Marcos again got up slowly, dragging himself of the canvas at the count of eight. Rios then went after him and landed a series of powerful left hooks to the head. Moments later, Rios dropped Marcos with a right hand . After getting up, Marcos attempted to fight back, throwing a few slow hooks to the midsection of Rios, which did exactly nothing to slow him down.
Rios then teed-off with some huge right hands, backing Marcos up and then dropping him for the third time in the round with a right uppercut to the head. This time referee Tony stopped the one-sided boxing match at 2:13 of the 2nd round. Marcos, despite his eagerness to exchange punches with Rios, he never had the ability to compete with him and it was no surprise that he was taken out so quickly.
With this victory, Rios needs to consider moving it up against better competition than what he’s been facing thus far in his boxing career, because he’s been matched a little bit too soft up to this point in his career and it’s time he start facing some live opponents for a change.