Brandon Rios: I was ahead of Danny Garcia on points

By Boxing News - 02/19/2018 - Comments

Image: Brandon Rios: I was ahead of Danny Garcia on points

By Allan Fox: Brandon ‘Bam Bam’ Rios says he was ahead on points and wishes his corner hadn’t stopped the fight last Saturday night after he was knocked down in the 9th round by Danny Garcia at Mandalay Bay I Las Vegas, Nevada. Rios sounded very punch drunk at the post fight press conference.

In the 9th round, Rios (34-4-1, 25 KOs) threw a slow jab, which Garcia (34-1, 20 KOs) countered with a straight hand that knocked him flat on his back. Rios got back to his feet and stumbled when referee Kenny Bayless instructed for him to walk to him. Bayless then stopped the fight when he saw the condition the 31-year-old Rios was in. Rios was so hurt that he would have been knocked down immediately by Garcia if the referee had let the fight continue.

Rios, 31, looked really tired in the 9th round. He was getting by big shots from Garcia that he wasn’t getting hit with earlier in the fight. Rios’ punches were weak and slow by that point in the fight. The reality is that Rios had very little power even in the earlier rounds. The reason that Garcia’s face was so badly marked up was because Rios was hitting him a lot. Garcia’s defense was his legs. The only time Garcia, 29, was able to get out of the way of Rios’ shots was when he was moving and holding him.

”I’m sad the fact that I know I was above on points. I was doing really good,” Rios said after the fight. ”I was breaking him down, I was breaking him [expletive] down. In my heart, I was above on points. It was a really close fight. It happens, you know? “Yes, I was getting hit, but I think I was breaking him down, I was doing really good,” Rios said.

Rios sounds really deluded here. He wasn’t winning the fight. At the time the fight was halted, Garcia was ahead by the scores 78-74, 79-73 and 79-73. Garcia was well ahead on all 3 of the judges’ scorecards. The fact that Rios couldn’t see that is troubling because he should have been able to tell that he was eating shots and losing the fight by a fairly wide margin.

Rios has a lot of boxing fans still, but that’s not enough for him to continue to take beatings like this. This was the second time in the last 3 fights that Rios has been stopped. Tim Bradley did it 2 fights ago in 2015 in stopping Rios in the 9th round. Rios said after last night’s fight with Garcia that this was the first time he’d been knocked down in a fight. He forgot entirely what happened to him against Bradley.

Someone needs to let Rios know that he’s not going anywhere as a fighter, and he needs to take a reality check and retire. The beating that Rios took tonight against Garcia is going to happen again as soon as he’s put in with a halfway decent welterweight. Garcia is a good fighter, but there are a lot of other contenders in the 147 lb. weight class that would do the same thing or worse to Rios. There’s no chance that Rios is going to get a title shot against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman, IBF champion Errol Spence Jr. or WBA World champion Lucas Matthysse. If any of those champions had considered throwing a bone to Rios and giving him an unearned title shot, they’re no longer thinking that now after watching him get knocked out by a very average looking Danny Garcia.

”I’ve never been knocked down before. I got up too fast, I was still sort of wobbly, and my corner felt I was hurt. But I don’t think I was hurt, I could’ve still continued,” Rios said. ” But I felt I was up on points, and I felt I was winning the fight. I’m mad because they didn’t give me the opportunity to try to finish the round,” Rios said.

Rios must have been punch drunk after the fight because he was repeating himself over and over by saying he was winning the fight. Rios was crazy to think that he could have finished out the round. He was so hurt that he had to be helped back to his corner by his trainer Robert Garcia. Rios doesn’t understand that it wasn’t his corner that stopped the fight. It was the referee Kenny Bayless. He made the decision after Rios stumbled when he asked him to walk towards him after he got back to his feet. Bayless had to stop the fight at that point because Rios would have been knocked out ugly by Garcia.

At the post-fight press conference, Rios didn’t speak on what his plans are for his next fight. Rios is capable of still beating journeyman level opposition, but he’s not going to be able to beat any of the quality contenders in the 140 and 147 lb. weight classes. Rios will probably justify continuing his boxing career because he was in with a former 2 division world champion.

Rios’ trainer Robert Garcia should have spoken up and told Rios not to take the fight with Danny Garcia, because it was a mismatch waiting to happen. Robert Garcia has got to know what Rios’ imitations are as a fighter or him to let him take a fight with Danny Garcia was the wrong decision. I think Rios would lose badly to contenders like Jamal James, Devon Alexander, Jessie Vargas, Adrian Granados, Bradley Skeete, Rashidi Ellis, Egidijus Kavaliauskas, Shawn Porter Porter and Konstantin Ponomarev.

”“I felt great, I felt strong, I wasn’t tired or nothing like that. I felt really good, in perfect shape. I threw a lazy jab, he came over and caught me,” Rios said. ”Every warrior gets dropped. Look at Arturo Gatti, Micky Ward, Julio Cesar Chavez, Josesito Lopez, he’s been dropped, Maidana’s been dropped,” Rios said.

Rios comparing himself to Marcos Maidana, Julio Cesar Chavez and Arturo Gatti is kind of sad. He’s never had that kind of talent that those fighters possessed. Gatti was beaten by a lot of fighters, but he was still more of a fighter in his prime than Rios. It’s not just that Rios was knocked down tonight. He ws weak, slow and tired looking. Rios is too weak and slow for him to be fighting guys from the 1st tier of the welterweight division. Rios would be fine if he faced 2nd tier fighters with limited talent that he could beat up. But with Rios’ name, he’s going to be in demand by contenders looking to add name to their resume and have their fights televised on Premier Boxing Champions or HBO.

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