Rios to get rematch with Pacquiao if he gets one more win, says Robert Garcia

By Boxing News - 01/29/2015 - Comments

pac#4By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Robert Garcia is saying that he was told that if his fighter former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios (33-2-1, 24 KOs) picks up one more victory, he’ll be getting a rematch against WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao.

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum wants to match Rios up against a big name for his next fight, and that would give Rios a chance to earn a second fight against Pacquiao. Garcia thinks a second fight between the two would sell with the boxing fans despite the fact that Pacquiao soundly beat Rios by a one-sided 12 round decision in November of 2013.

“They [Top Rank] already told me one more win and they’ll give us [Rios] a rematch [against Pacquiao],” Garcia told Esnewsreporting.com. “A lot of people already told me that the Brandon that fought Saturday would give Pacquiao a much, much better fighter, and it’s a fight that would sell.”

Pacquiao won the fight against Rios by the scores of 119-109, 120-108 and 118-110.
For Rios to get a rematch with Pacquiao, he’s going to need a big win over a guy like Timothy Bradley, Ruslan Provodnikov, Juan Manuel Marquez or Lucas Matthysse. Unfortunately, I don’t know if Arum will be able to produce any of those names for Rios to fight next, because Rios doesn’t have anything to offer any of those guys in terms of a world title belt.

“Maybe Cotto at a catch-weight,” Garcia said in discussing who he’d like for Rios to face next. I think it would be next to impossible for Rios to get a title shot against Cotto. That would be almost as bad as Rios getting another fight against Pacquiao.

There would be a lot of boxing fans who would be repelled at the idea of Cotto, the WBC middleweight champion, facing Rios rather than Gennady Golovkin. It would make Cotto look like a ducker if he faced Rios in a title defense of his WBC 160 pound title instead of Golovkin.

Pacquiao will take a lot of criticism if he fights Rios again, because there fight was so one-sided. It was like Pacquiao was stealing candy from a baby, because Rios was just too slow of hand and feet in that fight to make it competitive. I don’t see how any of that will change in a rematch.

If Rios fights Pacquiao like he did Alvarado, we could see Rios get knocked out like Ricky Hatton was. The way Rios fought Alvarado in their third fight this month was vintage Hatton with the way Rios came forward looking to put a lot of pressure on Alvarado. Pacquiao would likely eat that style up and hit Rios with a shot that he couldn’t see coming.

Garcia and Arum are really excited about Rios after the way he looked in beating Mike Alvarado by a 3rd round stoppage on January 24th in a fight on HBO from Broomfield, Colorado. Garcia thinks Rios has been rejuvenated to the fighter that he was when he defeated Miguel Acosta back in February of 2011.

Rios was considered to be in his prime back then, but he’s really slipped a lot since that time and battled weight problems. Rios has looked sluggish in the ring for many of his fights in the last three years, and he has controversial wins over Richard Abril and Diego Chaves in fights that he arguably should have lost.

Whether Rios could beat those guys if he was at his best like he was in the third fight against Alvarado is unclear.



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