By Chris Williams: Promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank has talked recently of wanting to match his fighter former WBA World lightweight champion Brandon Rios (29-0-1, 22 KO’s) up with his number #1 cash cow Manny Pacquiao in 2013 in a fight that would make a lot of money and possibly turn the 25-year-old Rios into a legitimate pay-per-view attraction.

However, Arum has plans on matching Rios up against 38-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez on July 14th at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, after Rios takes care of his light work against the non-punching Richard Abril on April 14th and Marquez takes care of the equally light hitting Sergiy Fedchenko also on April 14th. Arum must have a lot of confidence in Rios to match him up against Marquez because this could go bad and work against Arum by Marquez turning around and schooling Rios like he’s done against countless one-dimensional sluggers similar to him. If Arum has the end goal to match Rios vs. Pacquiao in a nice little in house Top Rank fight, then it’s pretty stupid to match Rios against the more talented Marquez and having Rios beaten up and made to look like a mediocre fighter.

It’s a gamble by Arum to let that fight happen if he’s at all serious about wanting to match Rios against Pacquiao. Who would want to see Rios fight Pacquiao after Rios gets beaten by Marquez? I guess it might not matter to Arum, because he’s the one that matched Joshua Clottey against Pacquiao in March 2010. Clottey was coming off of a loss to Miguel Cotto nine months earlier. Although the Clottey-Pacquiao fight still drew a respectable 600,000+ PPV numbers, they were a lot lower than in Pacquiao’s other fights around the same time. Few fans were excited about the Clottey-Pacquaio fight given Clotty’s recent loss, and I suspect the same thing will happen if Rios is matched against Pacquiao after Marquez takes care of him in July.

What Arum should do instead of matching Rios against Marquez in July would be to ignore that fight and just throw Rios in with Pacquiao to get torn apart in 2012. Arum can always toss Rios in against Marquez after Rios loses to Pacquiao. Rios could then take another beating and fans would likely forget about him.