By Paul Strauss: The fans at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas were on there feet through much of the fight, cheering for both warriors. Miguel Acosta was defending his WBA Lightweight Title against a tough and determined undefeated Brandon Rios. Acosta looked ready, and he looked like he had an excellent game plan.
During the early rounds, Acosta moved well and had Rios’ attack somewhat offset, which enabled him to use his better hand speed to beat Rios to the punch and keep things at the distance he wanted. He also surprised Rios with several hard lead right hands. Rios managed to keep the early round close, but he was getting outpointed by the sharper, volume punching Acosta.
The rounds were action packed with Acosta continuing to dominate, but Rios was getting in some good uppercuts. The problem was he was following too much and not trapping the speedy Acosta. Rios kept up the pressure though, and already in the latter part of the second round, he started to land some pretty good body shots. But, just when he looked to be turning the tide a bit in his favor, Acosta landed a huge right hand. Rios smiled, but it was evident that he got stung pretty good.
Acosta sensed it, and unloaded with several fast, hard combinations that drove Rios backwards, which is a posture he is not used to. Acosta wasn’t getting much of anything in return, so he started setting down on his shots and really was blasting through Rios guard. It didn’t look particularly good for Rios at that point. In the fifth round, Rios once again started landing some pretty good left hooks, and got the pressure going again, but Acosta was still throwing and landing more combinations.
Out of no where in the sixth, Rios landed a good hard, straight left jab right on the button. It put Acosta down and gave him a cut under the right eye. That probably was the first round that Rios won, and he did so with a 10-8 margin. Not a bad way to get back into things.
The seventh round had Rios continuing to put a tremendous amount of pressure on Acosta, but the champ wasn’t about to fold, and he demonstrated he had a lot left by ripping off more fast, sharp combinations. But, his punches did seem to have lost a bit of steam. Rios changed tactics a bit, by concentrating more on uppercuts to the body when in close. Those punches seemed to have the needed effect, as Acosta appeared to be losing even more steam. Rios continued the same strategy in the eighth, and then boom, he knocked Acosta down again. This time it seemed to be a combination of three lefts. The first one went to the body, and the second to the head. The third one landed as Acosta was trying to move to his left. He might have been a bit off balance, but it definitely was a knockdown, and an accumulation of the three punches.
However, once again Acosta proved why he was champ, because he came back hard in the ninth, and Rios wasn’t about to give up his advantage, so the two put on a great show and had the fans on their feet. The pattern was similar to many of the earlier rounds, Acosta had the edge in volume, but Rios landed the harder shots.
Up to the tenth round, Acosta appeared to be able to see the right hands thrown by Rios. If he couldn’t block or slip them, he managed to roll with them to minimize the effect. But, the tremendous pressure put on him by Rios caused fatigue to set in. In the tenth, Rios started off a five punch combination with a jab that glanced off Acosta’s face. It wasn’t particularly hard jab, but for a fraction of a second Acosta’s vision was obstructed, so he didn’t see the hard right that followed. When that shot landed, it was the beginning of the end. Three more punches landed, one of which was another very hard right hand. Everyone in the place knew Acosta was done.
It was 1:14 seconds of the tenth round, and as Brandon “Bam Bam” Rios shouted when hoisted up on his handlers’ shoulders, “And the new……” Rios remains undefeated as he captured the WBA World Lightweight Title. It was a great fight and a tremendous win for the new young champion. He already was a fan favorite, and now he will be able to turn that popularity into some big money fights.
In the post fight interview, he told Jim Gray that the only advice he had was to never give up on your dreams. He also credited Acosta with being a great fighter and a hard puncher. He said he tried to stay close to prevent Acosta from using his power, but it didn’t always work and he admitted that Acosta hurt him on more than one occasion.
Miguel Acosta told Jim Gray that he never fully recovered from the first knockdown in the sixth round. You could have fooled most of those watching, because he certainly continued to fight hard after that.
This was such a great fight that there was even some talk of a rematch, but Promoter Bob Arum advised that that might happen somewhere down the line, but for now he would be looking to land a big named opponent for Rios.