(Photo: Chris Farina – Top Rank) By Jason Kim: Brandon Rios (29-0-1, 22 KO’s) already has a pretty good idea how Cuban Richard Abril (17-2-1, 8 KO’s) will be trying to fight him on Saturday night and that’s by running from him all night rather than trying to mix it up. It’s hard to argue with Rios because if you look at many of Abril’s fights against tough opposition, Abril has looked like a runner trying not to get hit.

Rios said “He [Abril] is going to run. He is going to try and run away from me all night. He talks about how he’s going to punish me. If he wants to do that he’s going to have to fight me.”

That probably won’t happen unless Abril makes a dramatic change to his normal fighting style, which could be categorized as a hit and run style. Abril doesn’t mind slugging it out when he’s got a guy that’s made to order for him like his last opponent Miguel Acosta. He didn’t have the chin to battle and that resulted in Acosta getting knocked down a couple of times.

Rios and Arbil will be facing off a the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada. The fight will be shown on HBO pay-per-view for those boxing fans interested in paying the stiff $44.95 asking price for the fight. That’s a bit much, you also get to see Juan Manuel Marquez fight Ukrainian Sergiy Fedchenko for the interim WBO light welterweight title on the card as well as unbeaten 140 pound contender Mike Alvarado vs. Mauricio Herrera in a fight that could prove to be interesting to watch. Only the Alvarado-Herrera fight promises to be a good one because that one if clearly a fight between two evenly matched contenders and not a fight between a big hitter and an inexperienced 2nd fighter like the match-up between Rios and Abril. For the kind of money they’re asking for this PPV card, at one of the fights needs to be a competitive one or else there could be a lot of angry boxing fans on Saturday. This is why it doesn’t make sense to put fight cards together involving two mismatches – Marquez vs. Fedchenko and Rios vs. Abril – and sell it as an expensive PPV bout. You might get some fans that are interested in paying to see it, but you the burn bridges when the fights turn out to be disappointing affairs because of how one-sided they are.