By Chris Williams: Bob Arum is talking about putting together a nice little Top Rank in house fight between unbeaten light welterweight contender Mike Alvarado (33-0, 23 KO’s) vs. former WBA World lightweight champion Brandon Rios (30-0-1, 22 KO’s) on the undercard of the October 13th fight between IBF/WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire vs. Jorge Arce or Toshiaki Nishioka.

Arum told Philboxing.com “There is a great match-up on the undercard [of the possible Donaire vs. Arce or Nishioka].”

The Rios-Alvarado match-up is a good one because Alvarado can actually fight and he could be a real problem for Rios unless we get some similar judging that we got recently in Rios’ very questionable win over Richard Abril last April when Rios was given a 12 round split decision victory in a fight where he appeared to win only two rounds at the most.

You have to wonder why Arum is willing to risk putting the 26-year-old Rios in with the 32-year-old Alvarado, #1 WBO, #3 IBF, because on paper I see this as a fight that Rios might get stomped. I guess it’s a sink or swim gamble. If it pays off and Rios doesn’t get another gift, then he’ll be right back where he started from, more or less, and can be one of the major players at light welterweight. But if Rios gets whipped badly by Alvarado like I think he will, Arum can then cut his losses and dump Rios as a lost cause.

What made Rios a decent fighter in the past was that he was like the equivalent of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in the lightweight division. In other words, Rios would somehow make weight for the division and then balloon up in weight after rehydrating and then he’d dwarf most of his opponents in terms of weight. This allowed him to pick up some wins over guys like Miguel Acosta, Urbano Antillon, Anthony Peterson, John Murray, Omri Lowther and Jorge Luis Teron. But at 140, Rios doesn’t have any advantage any more because he can’t bloat up to 160 because he doesn’t have the frame to carry that kind of weight. He’s going to be a 150+ but that’s no advantage against the light welterweights, in particular Alvarado, who is a big fighter with a lot of power.

I somehow see Rios winning another gift decision that will hurt him more than help him. Top Rank has invested too much money in Rios and I can’t see him losing even if he gets schooled in the same way he did against Abril. Alvarado is the better fighter at this weight, but at 32, he doesn’t have much time. I can’t see the judges giving him the win unless he knocks Rios down three or four times and has him looking bloodied and battered.