Roach: Rios can win if he performs like last time

By Boxing News - 11/06/2015 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: Brandon Rios (33-2-1, 24 KOs) is a huge 5:1 underdog for his title this Saturday night against WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KOs) and next to nobody is giving him much of a chance of winning this fight at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.

Trainer Freddie Roach believe that the 29-year-old Rios has a very good chance of winning this fight if he performs like the fighter he was in his last fight against a shot-looking Mike Alvarado last January in their rubber match.

Roach was really impressed with the talent that Rios showed in that fight, and he thinks he’s got more than enough to beat the 32-year-old Bradley if he can fight at that level on Saturday. Whether Rios can do that is the major question because he’s been unpredictable at times, and look terrible in many of his fights in his last four fight.

“Brandon Rios in his last fight looked really good,” Roach said to Fighthype. “It was the first time that I saw him look really, really clean. You could tell by his skin color that he was taking care of himself. He was a different fighter. If that guy comes out, he will win again,” Roach said.

I agree with Roach that Rios has a decent chance of winning the fight, but it’s going to require that he cuts off the ring and really goes after Bradley because his new trainer Teddy Atlas is going to have Bradley playing the hit and run style all night long. It’s predictable what Bradley is going to do in this fight because Atlas was impressed with the performance that Bradley put on against Juan Manuel Marquez two years ago.

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Rios, 29, needs to put a ton of pressure on Bradley for him to get the win because Bradley is going to be on the run for most of the fight. He’s going to play the same hit and run thing that he did against Marquez in 2013. However, Bradley isn’t quite as young as he was back then, and it’s quite [possible that Rios could take advantage of his aging and ring wear.

“I’m more than ready for this fight. I prepared very well mentally, physically, spiritually,” Bradley said. “I’m well in tuned. I’m just focused for this. Everything that’s said here today doesn’t mean anything. The only thing that matters is what goes on and happens in that ring Saturday night. I know now that I have control of that. I have control of me. Teddy has taught me that. If I have control of myself and we do what we trained to do, I should come out victorious.”

Bradley really believes that Atlas has improved his game somehow. I don’t know how Atlas can improve what hasn’t already been worked on in the past in Bradley’s game. At 32, there’s really no potential that is untapped in Bradley. The only thing that Atlas can do is pressure Bradley to use more movement than he’s used in the past, because he’s not going to be able to make him more aggressive than he already is.



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