Rios lined up to face Bradley; Donaire to battle Quigg

By Boxing News - 08/02/2015 - Comments

rios4222By Scott Gilfoid: Top Rank promotions are looking to make two big fights in November involving three of their biggest stars in their stable. Former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios (33-2-1, 24 KOs) will be facing newly crowned WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KOs) on November 7th, possibly at The Forum in Inglewood, California, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.

The other fight involves former four division world champion Nonito Donaire (35-3, 23 KOs) traveling to the UK to fight unbeaten WBA “regular” super bantamweight champion Scott Quigg on November 21st in Manchester, England. Donaire, 32, doesn’t care that he’d be fighting Quigg in his home country.

Donaire is confident that he’ll beat the young upstart Quigg, who still hasn’t faced anyone good after all these years. Donaire would have a huge advantage over Quigg in terms of experience, and this fight could very well turn out to be a major mismatch with Donaire destroying the inexperienced Quigg.

“This is a fight we want. It’s a good opportunity for Nonito. It’s a fight we are very confident that he can win, even if it is in England,” Dunkin said via ESPN.com.

Donaire is getting up there in age, to be sure. But I still see him as being too fast, too powerful and dare I say too talented for the likes of Quigg. This is going to be a real disappointment for Quigg and his fans when Donaire spoils their festive occasion and ruins the Carl Frampton fight plans.

As for the Rios-Bradley fight, Cameron Dunkin, the manager for Rios, is working with him to find out how much it’s going to cost to get him to sign for the fight. Top Rank president Todd duBoef is working with Bradley and his wife Monica Bradley to find out what they’re looking to get out of the negotiations.

Rios needs to get back inside the ring soon because he’s been out of action for ages. The last time he fought was in January of this year when he beat a way past his best Mike Alvarado by a 3rd round knockout. In terms of condition, Rios was in the best shape he’s been in years. The unfortunate part about it is that now he’s been put of the ring for seven months. By the time he does fight this year, he’ll have been out of the ring for 10 months. That’s not good when you’re facing someone as fast as Bradley.

It’s going to be a really tough match-up for Rios, because he doesn’t have good hand speed, and Bradley will likely take advantage of that in the same way Manny Pacquiao did in beating Rios two years ago.

“It’s a big fight with a lot of storylines between two really good fighters,” Dunkin said via ESPN.com. “We’re working on it and hopefully we can get it done. Top Rank and HBO really want to make it. We want to make it too.”

If the fight negotiations don’t get done, then Rios will likely have to be content with fighting just once in 2015. It’s unclear how many more years Rios has on his contract with Top Rank. If they’re not going to be keeping him active, then Rios might be better off signing with someone like Al Haymon, who can keep Rios plenty busy by matching him against his large stable of welterweights on Premier Boxing Champions.

Rios would likely get three good fights a year if he was with Haymon. There wouldn’t be the rust issues that we’re now seeing with Rios just sitting and waiting for fights that don’t come with Top Rank. Even if Rios does get the fight against Bradley, he’s likely going to lose that fight. What happens then? Maybe he gets a fight against Ruslan Provodnikov in a cash out fight, but I think that would be the end of the road for Rios in terms of viable fights with Top Rank. He’s certainly not going to get another fight against Pacquiao, and he can’t keep fighting Alvarado because the last fight was the final nail on the coffin of their three fight series.



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