Robert Garcia, the trainer of fringe contender Brandon Rios, says that Rios needs to be in action soon and expects Top Rank to bring him back by the summer. We last saw the team of Rios and Garcia in action January 24th when Rios defeated Mike Alvarado in a match that was the deciding victory in their trilogy that spanned three years.
Rios looked great in the outing and made adjustments from his last fight with Alvarado, which was the only fight Alvarado won in the trilogy. After a relatively long layoff between his loss to Pacquiao and his comeback fight against Diego Chaves, Rios made a quicker turnaround to fight Alvarado and benefited from the lack of time off.
With Rios’ style, there are plenty of interesting matchups that can be made, and Garcia says that Rios is willing to fight various weights including junior middleweight and perhaps catch weights around 144lbs.
Rios has been lobbying for a fight with Kell Brook after Brook announced that he’d be interested in that fight. Garcia says that they would take a Kell Brook fight but not next because he doesn’t want Rios sitting on ice and would prefer that he take a fight between the potential showdown and now.
“Kell Brook called [Brandon] out after his last fight, but I guess he decided to go somewhere else and fight somebody else. He’s fighting May 30th, so that leaves Brandon out of the picture. Right now, Brandon is just trying to get a fight. He wants to fight anybody; he doesn’t care who it is. Hopefully, Top Rank gives him something in June or July,” Garcia told Rod from Thaboxingvoice.com.
Garcia is anxious to secure a fight for Rios because he knows that staying active keeps Brandon competitive with practically anyone.
“Brandon needs to be a fighter that’s active. Top Rank already knows that, that’s why they need to get him back into the ring by June or July. Brandon can’t stay too long without being in the gym. They should get him back soon.”
One fight that has been discussed for a year now is Rios and Ruslan Provodnikov, who lost an entertaining and competitive bout against Lucas Matthysse over the weekend. Garcia claims that Rios would step up and fight either man, but he knows that they will need time off after the grueling fight they had, and understandably so, and would prefer Rios take a stay busy fight if he can’t secure a big name opponent next.
“Definitely [Brandon would fight either Provodnikov or Matthysse], any of those fights are possible. The thing is they both might not fight until the end of the year because they’re both going to need some time off. Brandon can’t wait until the end of the year, he needs to fight in June or July.”
