Arum explains why he chose Rios to fight Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 11/10/2013 - Comments

rios6755By Chris Williams: Bob Arum of Top Rank took the time to explain why he personally selected one of his Top Rank stable fighters Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KO’s) to be the opponent for Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) on November 23rd in Macau, China.

While I thought that Arum pretty much chose Rios simply because he tends to put on a lot of in house fights matching guys from his own Top Rank stable, Arum says that he selected Rios because he has a fighting style similar to Arturo Gatti, and he saw him as the most exciting option to match against Pacquiao.

Arum said to HBO “I looked around at the fighters that would guarantee that the fight would be sensationally exciting, you have to have a fighter that is all action, all coming forward and that was Brandon Rios. Rios is the closest thing to the late Arturo Gatti I’ve seen around.”

Rios is a decent name, but I could think of at least 10 guys I’d prefer to see Pacquiao in with besides Rios, but I can understand why Arum would want to match Rios against Pacquiao. I just hope that win or lose that we start seeing Pacquiao against some other guys that are outside of Arum’s stable of fighters because I’d hate to see Pacquiao finish his days as a fighter by facing Rios and Tim Bradley multiple times the way that we’ve seen Pacquiao matched up against Juan Manuel Marquez.

It’s more interesting to see Pacquiao matched against a new guy every time instead of seeing him fight the same guys over and over again. If Arum needs to expand his Top Rank stable in order to match Pacquiao against new fighters then so be it. I just don’t want to see Pacquiao fighting Rios three-four times and the same with Bradley. And I definitely don’t want to see Pacquiao fighting Mike Alvarado, at least not after watching Ruslan Provodnikov give him a beating. Provodnikov would be a good opponent for Pacquiao after the Rios fight. I have a feeling that Pacquiao will lose to Rios, but I still don’t want to see a rematch between them. Arum needs to come up with some fresh opponents, because it’s got to be difficult for Pacquiao to stay motivated when he’s fighting the same guys over and over again.

I’d like to see Pacquiao fight someone like Keith Thurman or Andrien Broner. I know they’re not Top Rank stable fighters, but I still think both of them would be good opponents for Pacquiao.



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