Boxing has produced some real characters over the years, but Victor Ortiz is developing into one of the most enigmatic men currently active. Ortiz and Rios did grow up together through boxing and this would be a fight with a true emotionally charged back story, but other than that it does not seem to have a lot going for it. The Marcos Maidana, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Josesito Lopez and Luis Collazo debacles do not seem to have phased Ortiz.
What it would appear in Ortiz calling Rios out like he has, is to jump the queue back into the world picture by fighting a guy who is currently doing well rather than working his way back up through the rankings like fighters should. Ortiz is just one fight back into his comeback and may be getting frustrated with the time consuming process it is going to be to rebuild his name, and so by fighting a guy who now only has one outstanding loss (to Pacquiao) he will be able to do that a lot quicker.
What Ortiz doesn’t seem to understand is that Rios is the kind of fighter he should be looking to avoid at this point. If Ortiz is serious about getting into the ring with Rios after seeing him decimate Alvarado in such fashion then I have to really question his mental health at that point. I do no see Ortiz lasting six rounds against a guy as intense and aggressive as Rios. Whilst I do not rate Rios as a great fighter, he has the ability to break guys down with his high pressure-smash mouth style of fighting. Pacquiao won every round of their bout, but that was mainly due to the fact that he had huge advantages in terms of speed, timing and pure boxing ability. He never hurt Rios.
On the other hand I could see this being a good deal for Rios down the line as it would not be one of the hardest fights he has been in, but Ortiz needs to string some wins together first in order for it to be worthwhile for him. Taking the fight against Ortiz now, whilst he has 3 losses (all by stoppage) in his last 4 fights is going to look like he is fighting a washed up quitter and that is not really acceptable in a division with so much talent.