Brandon Rios has had a torrid time of it over the last few months. After his dominant victory over old rival Mike Alvarado in their rubber match back in January, he is yet to grace a boxing ring, after talks for him to face IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook hit a stumbling block over glove type and a rematch clause.
His trainer Robert Garcia has an ingenious plan for his fighter however – throw his name into the hat with all the others for an eventual shot at Floyd Mayweather, however unrealistic that may be given the frosty relationship between Floyd and Bob Arum, Brandon’s Promoter.
Speaking from his Oxnard, California training base, Garcia said;
“If Top Rank was gonna send Brandon to a different promoter and pretty much let his fighter go, why not let us do it with Mayweather? He could do the same. Mayweather could be the promoter and why not? It’d be a good fight.”
“Why can it not be Brandon? Unless Top Rank doesn’t let us do it, but if they were gonna let us do it against Brook with a different promoter, I think they could easily do the same thing with Mayweather – but I don’t think that’s gonna happen either.”
Bob Arum said recently that an opportunity existed for Rios to box late September on a Top Rank card and Garcia confirms some of the names that have been lined up;
“They mentioned Matthysse, they mentioned Provodnikov, they’ve even mentioned (Jessie) Vargas or Bradley but that’d be towards the end of the year, so we’re just waiting.”
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