By Mike Smith: Brandon Rios (35-4-1, 26 KOs) looked like his old self last Saturday night in beating Ramon ‘Inocente’ Alvarez (27-7-3, 16 KOs) by a 9th round knockout on DAZN.
Rios was struggling early on in the 1st round in taking a lot of shots from the 32-year-old Alvarez. But once Rios found his groves, he dominated in punishing Alvarez until stopping him in the 9th round at the Kansas Star Arena, Mulvane, Kansas.
Alvarez looked good at the start of almost every round, but he was unable to fight hard for the full three minutes. This enabled Rios to come on and land nonstop shots in the last two-thirds of every round to get the better of the action. Alvarez’s fast starts for each round is similar to his younger brother Saul Canelo Alvarez, who starts strong in each round, but then gets tired and gets hit.
Rios wasn’t bothering to load up on his punches when he was at close range. He was just hitting Alvarez with arm punches one after another. The natural power that Rios had on his shot was enough to do damage to Ramon. It was the uppercuts from Rios that bothered Alvarez the most. Rios showed that he could land with power with his uppercuts even when he wasn’t putting his body behind the punches. Rios was standing straight up when he threw his uppercuts.
It was the type of performance that showed that Rios still has the potential to defeat certain types of fighters like Ramon Alvarez.
The win for Rios keeps him in the running for a world title shot. Don’t laugh. A guy like Rios is valuable to champions like Shawn Porter, Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman and Errol Spence Jr. Those fighters need a recognizable name like Rios for them to attract interest in their fights from the boxing fans.
Alvarez has to be commended on his ability to take heavy shots from Rios. Alvarez’s chin was rock solid with the way that he withstood Rios’ best punches for the first eight rounds. Alvarez was on the verge of being stopped in the 8th round after getting hurt by some big shots from Rios. Alvarez stubbornly made it through the 8th round on will alone. It was clear though that Alvarez wouldn’t survive the 9th unless he did something differently to turn things around. The referee let Alvarez make it through the 8th, but he couldn’t do that in the 9th because he was taking too much punishment.
Rios took command of the fight from the 4th round on with his high energy attacks. Alvarez was trying, but he couldn’t keep up with Rios.
There’s still a lot of money for Rios to make with his career. Rios’ net worth is $20 million, according to idolnetworth.com. He’s had some big paydays against Manny Pacquiao, Tim Bradley, Mike Alvarado and Danny Garcia. Rios was under contract with Top Rank for many years, and he made a lot of money with that promotional company.