“Bam Bam” Brandon Rios is finally set to return to the ring in November against Timothy Bradley, a full 10 months after his dominant and destructive victory over an “out-of-sorts” ‘Mile High’ Mike Alvarado in their January rubber-match.
It’s been a long time coming for the Robert Garcia trained brawler, who, until reasonably recently, was all set to be coming to England to challenge IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook, until the fight fell apart at the advanced negotiation stage – over a number of different reasons – chief among them was thought to be financial minutiae – so at the last minute, Team Rios, and manager Cameron Dunkin, had to start their search for an opponent all over again.
For his part, Brook has signed to fight Argentina’s finge contender Diego Chaves on October 24th in Sheffield, a man who managed a controversial draw against Bradley last December, and who got himself DQ’d in a dirty fight with Rios 13 months ago.
Speaking to fighthype.com about the fallout from the on-again, off-again behind-the-scenes talks his camp had with Team Brook, Rios, as always, didn’t mince his words, and allowed his frustration towards the Brit to be conveyed with a few choice insults.
“I hope Diego Chaves f**** him up,” Rios said succinctly. ” I hope Diego Chaves kicks his a**, because Kell Brook’s a pu***, he didn’t wanna fight me.”
“He was talking all this bulls***, ‘Brandon’s scared, I could knock you out, you’re easy work, this and that,” Rios continued. “But when I said ‘ok, let’s do it’, it got to ‘Oh, Brandon can’t use those gloves’ and ‘I want a rematch clause.’
“If you don’t wanna fight me then keep your mouth closed and don’t say my name. Just keep your mouth shut and keep on defending your title against guys like Frankie Gavin.”
“I hope Diego Chaves beats his a** and takes his title and brings it back to – well, Argentina – but he can defend it here in the States.”
Fans will now be unlikely to see any fight between Brook and Rios materialize, regardless of what happens in the future, as Brook is already developing an early – and perhaps unwarranted (just yet) – reputation for wanting to stay in the UK, and hasn’t shown any desire to travel back to the US as yet for the big fights.
That’s where any clash would have to now take place if they did ever get it on, according to Rios.
“I’d (still) be open to it but they gotta come to me now,” Rios said. “I was willing to go to him and take a pay cut and fight him in his backyard.”
“If I come out victorious (against Bradley) he can come to me and he can take the pay cut now, and if he don’t, ok, we move on…”
Twitter @Undilutedpoison