By Chris Williams: Brandon Rios (31-0-1, 23 KO’s) probably earned himself a shot against Manny Pacquiao last night in defeated Mike Alvarado (33-1, 23 KO’s) in their WBO light welterweight eliminator bout. With both Rios and Pacquiao belonging to the same Top Rank stable, it’s now almost a given that their promoter Bob Arum will match Rios up with Pacquiao next April, provided that Pacquiao beats Juan Manuel Marquez on December 8th. If Pacquiao loses, then it’ll likely be Marquez that faces Rios.

By matching Rios up with Pacquiao, Arum continues with the club-like fight matching of his fighters because it’s just another Top Rank in house fight for Arum if he makes this fight. I think Rios is a decent fighter but I’d like to see him actually prove himself worthy of a fight with Pacquiao by beating more established light welterweights like Lucas Matthysse, Danny Garcia, and Lamont Peterson before Rios gets a shot against Pacquiao.

It seems just wrong that Rios is getting a big fight against Pacquiao after only beating Alvarado, who never really beat anyone to begin with. Alvarado’s biggest wins of his career came agaisnt Breidis Prescott and Maurcio Herrera. That’s pretty flimsy experience if you ask me, especially when you realize that Alvarez would have lost to Prescott if he didn’t knock him out in the 10th.

Obviously, Arum isn’t going to wait for Rios to prove himself and will likely rush him into the Pacquiao fight, because the chances are good that Rios would lose to Mattysse, Garcia and possibly even to Peterson. Rios looked like he was on his way to losing last night when he was able to hurt Alvarado. However, I don’t think Rios would be able to hurt Matthysse and Garcia. If it came down to a boxing match, Rios will lose to those guys. But that’s not going to happen because Arum won’t make those fights.

This kind of reminds me of one of Arum’s other fighters IBF/WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire. Arum matches Donaire up against beatable guys like Toshiaki Nishioka, Jeffrey Mathebula, Omar Narvaez and Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. instead of arguably the best fighters at super bantamweight in Abner Mares and Guillermo Rigondeaux. Now we’re about to see Rios get a shot against his #1 cash cow Pacquiao without even having to fight Peterson, Garcia and Matthysse. Is this boxing or club fighting? It sure seems like club fighting to me.