Diego Chaves has his visa, Brandon Rios fight is on!

By Boxing News - 07/30/2014 - Comments

chaves3By Dan Ambrose: #10 IBF Diego Chaves (23-1, 19 KOs) has received his visa today to travel to the United States to face former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios (31-2-1, 23 KOs) this Saturday night on HBO from the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

Chaves had to wait to get his visa due to a backlog on visa applications. Rios’ promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank pushed hard in reportedly contacting senator Harry Reid to see if he could speed up the process. Arum was ready to have light welterweight Jose Zepeda step in and take the fight with Rios if Chaves couldn’t get the visa.

Dan Rafael of ESPN said “Top Rank boxing says Diego Chaves has his visa now and will fly to the US today. Fight with Brandon Rios is on.”

Rios is going to have a hard fight on his hands with the Argentinian Chaves, because this guy can punch. Chaves is more of a light welterweight in size at 5’7 1/2″ than a welterweight, but he’s got major power. In his fight with Keith Thurman last year in July, Chaves looked to be the better puncher than Thurman. The only difference was that Chaves didn’t have the boxing skills, defense or the mobility that Thurman had, and that ultimately cost Chaves the fight.

Chaves does really well against fighters that stand in front of him and try to trade power shots the way that Brandon Rios will likely be doing on Saturday night. Unless Rios shows some movement, he could end up taking a real beating and possibly get knocked out.

Rios can take a major shot, but Chaves will test that ability on Saturday and even Rios might not be able to take his power. By the same token, Chaves is the type of guy that Rios does well against, so there’s a possibility that Rios might be able to score a knockout as well. If Thurman was able to get Chaves out of there, Rios might as well. However, Chaves has better hand speed and defensive skills than Rios, and that could make it tough for him to do well against this guy.

One of these guys is going to get knocked out on Saturday. Rios has taken a massive amount of punishment in his two fights against Mike Alvarado and his fight last November against Manny Pacquiao. Chaves might be the tipping point for Rios where he takes one too many vicious head shots and ends up getting stretched out on Saturday.



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