Rios-Pacquiao to take place at 147 lbs on HBO PPV

By Boxing News - 05/06/2013 - Comments

rios1By Chris Williams: Former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios won’t have to worry about having to strip off a lot of water weight for his next fight against Manny Pacquiao on November 23rd in their fight at the Venetian Maco Resort Hotel in Macau, China.

The fight will take place at 147 lbs, so if Rios has to struggle to make even this weight then there’s no excuse for the guy. Rios had to move up in weight from lightweight last year because he could no longer make the 135 lb. limit, but then in his last two fights, Rios has struggled to make the 140 lb. at light welterweight in his two fights with Mike Alvarado.

Now, Rios is moving up seven more pounds to 147, and if that’s still not enough weight then he’s going to need to fight at 154. I wish him a lot of luck at that weight because he’s going to need it. He doesn’t have the frame to be fighting at junior middleweight, but obviously he’s got the appetite.

Pacquiao and his promoter Bob Arum both wanted Juan Manuel Marquez, but he said no to an offer of $13 million after his rumored request for a 50-50 deal was turned down. A 50-50 deal would have given Marquez and Pacquiao in the neighborhood of $20 million each.

Marquez will now be fighting WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley on September 14th in a fight at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The third option for Pacquiao was Rios, who Pacquiao reportedly was interested in fighting. The thought here is that Rios is a good style match-up for the Filipino because he’ll be there to trade shots and he won’t use movement like Bradley did in beating him and he doesn’t have the counter punching ability that Marquez possesses.

It’s going to be a tough ask to get boxing fans to want to pay to see Pacquiao fight Rios because both guys are coming off of losses and Rios isn’t a PPV star. Up until recently, Rios has been an undercard fighter on HBO, and it’s not likely he’s going to be able to attract a lot of fans for this fight because it’s difficult to sell a fight between a non-popular fighter coming off of a loss like Rios.

The good thing about this fight is it’s a now opponent for Pacquiao. Arum has kind of been stuck on putting him in with retread opponents and it seems to have narrowed Pacquiao’s options to a revolving door of two or three guys instead of a full range of possible opponents you’d like to see him fight.

Unfortunately, this appears to be how Pacquiao will be matched for the remainder of what’s left of his career. He’ll likely be facing pretty much just these guys until he retires: Marquez, Alvarez, Bradley and Rios. You won’t see Pacquiao face Danny Garcia, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Keith Thurman, Andre Berto, Amir Khan, Lucas Matthysse, Lamont Peterson, Victor Ortiz or Robert Guerrero.



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