By Dan Ambrose: Unless former WBA World lightweight champion Brandon Rios (30-0-1, 22 KO’s) can pull some hidden ability out of his hat on October 13th in his fight against #1 WBO light welterweight contender Mike Alvarado (33-0, 23 KO’s), Rios could find himself absorbing his first loss of his career at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California.

Some would say that Rios has already been beaten twice in his questionable 10 round draw against Manuel Perez in October 2008, and then most recently Rios’ very controversial 12 round split decision win over Richard Abril last April. In both fights, Rios appeared to lose yet wasn’t given a defeat.

Alvarado has the power and the work rate to basically take the judges out of the picture entirely by giving Rios a terrible beating. What’s working against Rios in this fight is that he doesn’t have the ability to move away from Alvarado’s pressure and huge power shots in order to survive to win a decision in this fight. Rios is limited fighter that’s grown accustomed to always being the bigger fighter when he fought at lightweight.

Rios was like the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. of the lightweight division with ability to take offhis massive amounts of weight in order to make the 135 pound weight limit for the division. Once Rios rehydrated, he was pure trouble for anyone he faced. However, eventually Rios could no longer dehydrate enough to make the 135 lb division, and was forced to move up in weight to the light welterweight division where he no longer has a weight advantage over most of his opposition.

That’s going to be a problem for Rios, because I’d say that Alvarado will very likely be the bigger fighter when the two step inside the ring to get it on. Rios, with his lack of movement, will be a sitting duck for Alvarado and he could end up getting taken out.

After the last fight where Rios took a lot of heat for winning a controversial decision, I don’t see the judges giving Rios another controversial decision if he gets dominated like he did last time he fought. If Rios is going to beat Alvarado, he’s going to have to actually do it and not count on getting lucky again.