By Eric Thomas: World Boxing Association (WBA) lightweight champion Brandon Rios is looking for his next opponent after destroying Urbano Antillon in the 3rd round last weekend. There’s been talk of Rios potentially facing Marco Antonio Barrera. However, Australian Michael Katsidis (27-4, 22 KO’s) is now being mentioned as a potential next opponent for Rios.

A fight against the struggling Katsidis, who has lost his last two bouts, would hinge on Katsidis winning his next bout against Michael Lozado next month on August 13th. Ideally, it would be better Rios to face someone that is doing well and winning because his last opponent Antillon had lost two out of his last four fights at the time that he fought Rios and Katsidis is clearly struggling with his career right now. Katsidis was totally dominated in his last fight against Robert Guerrero.

That was a really bad performance from Katsidis and it showed how far apart he is from the top tier guys. Before that, Katsidis was stopped by Juan Manuel Marquez in another one-sided loss for Katsidis. With those kinds of losses in his last two fights it’s hard to see why Rios’ promoter Bob Arum would be interested in putting Rios in with Katsidis.

It isn’t like he’s fighting well right now or that he’ll be able to challenge him in any way. It’s more like Rios’ last fight against Antillon where Rios got a struggling fighter with a 50-50 record in his last four fights and of course he beat him. It would be better for Rios to fight someone that’s fighting well right now like Humberto Soto.

I wouldn’t mind seeing that fight but not a mismatch between Rios and Katsidis. It doesn’t matter if Katsidis beats Lozado next month because Lozado is someone that Katsidis is expected to beat handily.