By Dan Ambrose: Brandon Rios (33-2-1, 24 KOs) wasn’t setting the bar very high tonight when interviewed after his 3rd round total blowout win over his nemesis Mike Alvarado (34-4, 23 KOs) in a fight televised on HBO, but more worthy of an undercard on ESPN2.
With the cameras on him in being interviewed by HBO, instead of saying he wants a rematch against Manny Pacquiao or a fight against the likes of Floyd Mayweather Jr, Rios said he’d be interested in facing Victor Ortiz (30-5-2, 23 KOs) or Ruslan Provodnikov (24-3, 17 KOs) next.
Talk about your letdowns. Ortiz has lost three out of his last four fights, and Provodnikov has lost two out of his last four fights.
“Whatever Cameron Dunkin says I’m ready for,” Rios said after the fight about his manager. “I don’t care who it is. The Russian (Ruslan Provodnikov), Victor Ortiz if he wants to get it on, bad blood, whoever, I don’t care. I’m a fighter, I’m a warrior. I’ll fight anybody.”
Instead of Rios fighting Ortiz or Provodnikov, he should be looking to fight Diego Chaves again, because he clearly has unfinished business with the Argentinian fighter after their fight last year in August. Chaves was on the verge of beating Rios in the 9th round when the referee stopped the fight due to Chaves having thrown a phantom elbow. Replays showed that no elbow was thrown by Chaves.
I don’t think Rios-Ortiz is a fight that would be good for HBO or the boxing fans that would be subjected to such a poor fight in watching it in what would likely be the main event on the cable network.
You would hope that HBO would put their foot down and say no to a fight between Rios and Ortiz because the chances are too high that we’ll see Ortiz crumble early just like he did against Luis Collazo.
The boxing fans at the 1stBank Center, Broomfield, Colorado, really didn’t get their monies worth with the performance from Alvarado, who looked flabby and not in shape as he’d been in his first two fights against Rios.
Just one look at the flab that was on Alvarado’s frame before the fight had my spider senses tingling. I knew then that Alvarado hadn’t trained for the fight the way he should have, and I knew he’d lose.
“I knew what I had to do. I had to come prepared because that could have been the end of my career,” Rios said. “I don’t want that to happen. I still have a lot of gas in my tank and I didn’t want it to end like this. I never thought it was going to be easy. Alvarado’s a warrior and I knew he could bounce back with good shots. He’s got power in both hands so I had to take my time, be patient, listen to my corner, all the instructions, I followed the game plan from camp, be disciplined and I came out victorious.”
Rios’ career will go on a little while longer, but he’s still going to run into trouble when he’s matched against good welterweights. He looks good against flabby fighters like Alvarado, but it’s a different story if he gets put in with someone good, young and not a shot fighter.
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