By Dan Ambrose: Brandon Rios (31-2-1, 23 KOs) says he’s taken his training back to the basics to get him back to the level he was at when he was finding success during his career. Rios has whipped himself into condition for his fight on Saturday night against the tough as nails Argentinian Diego Chaves (23-1, 19 KOs) at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
Rios says he hasn’t worked out this hard in years. This obviously begs the question of why Rios supposedly didn’t work hard for his last two fights against Mike Alvarado and Manny Pacquiao. He looked in great shape for both fights.
You can’t really point to Rios’ conditioning as the reason why he was beaten by Alvarado and Pacquiao. It seemed more of a case of Rios not having the hand speed, boxing ability and foot movement to compete with those fighters.
“We went back to old school training,” Rios said. “I forgot what it takes to be a champion. This is the first time in a while I’m physically and mentally ready.”
I’m not sure that I believe that Rios is anymore ready for the Chaves fight than he was for his last two fights. Rios has looked bad in three out of his last four fights, and you can’t attribute him looking bad due to him not having worked out hard. Richard Abril made Rios look like he had two left feet in out-boxing him in 2012 and getting arguably robbed in the process.
If Rios is working out harder than ever, then he should have no excuses for him not moving back down to lightweight to campaign in that division. That’s really the only division where Rios has a chance of making an impact. He’s too slow and small to be fighting at welterweight, and he doesn’t have anywhere to go in that division.
Even at 140, there’s no place for Rios to go in that division, because WBO champion Chris Algieri and WBA champ Jessie Vargas would easily out-box Rios and make him look like Ruslan Provodnikov. Rios isn’t going to get a fight against WBA/WBC champ Danny Garcia, because he’s with Al Haymon.
If Diego Chaves defeats Rios on Saturday night and knocks him out, then Rios is going to have to come up with some kind of other reason for why he failed to produce other than him not training like he used to. I can picture Rios saying that he over-trained or something like that.
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