Rios welcomes Antillon's challenge
No one of sound mind will ever compare Brandon Rios' defense with Willie Pep's. Pep is regarded as the greatest defensive boxer of all-time, a man so elusive in the ring that he reputedly once won a round without landing a punch.
Rios is hardly a defensive wizard. His skills come up short even in comparison to Ricky Hatton, the recently retired two-division champion who became a beloved figure in boxing primarily for his ability to dole out punishment, not to avoid it.
Hatton, though, was Pep-like as compared to Rios, who sometimes acts if he'll be penalized for slipping a punch or disqualified for blocking one.
Rios, who will defend his World Boxing Association lightweight title against Urbano Antillon on Saturday in the main event of a Showtime-televised card at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., is the kind of fighter who sneers at the description of boxing as "the manly art of self defense."
"[Trainer] Robert Garcia tried like hell to teach him defense, to no avail," Rios promoter Bob Arum said. "The kid wants to fight and he only knows one way to fight: Face forward. He's a guy who loves to fight and who goes for broke and who never worries about a little thing like getting hit in the face."
He's going to get hit on Saturday and probably will be hit a lot. Antillon is one of the sport's best offensive fighters himself and, together with Humberto Soto, put on a stirring show on Dec. 4 in Anaheim, Calif., that wound up being named the 2010 Yahoo! Sports Fight of the Year.
Rios, though, relishes that kind of match and looks forward to being in one of the all-time great fights like Diego Corrales-Jose Luis Castillo I or Arturo Gatti-Micky Ward I.
"I'm looking for an opponent who will give me that kind of a fight," Rios said. "That's what I want so bad, to be in that kind of a war. I'm looking forward to this fight because I know this is going to be kind of like the grand finale on the Fourth of July fireworks."
Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti once promoted Gatti and had a front-row seat for his rise from obscurity to stardom. Gatti had a string of epic fights and for several years, nearly single-handedly saved the fight game in Atlantic City, N.J.
Rios isn't at that stage, though at 25 and just 28 fights into his career, he's got a good leg up on getting there. Moretti isn't ready to call Rios another Gatti just yet, but he said he sees a trait in Rios that was one of the keys to Gatti's success.
"There are guys, and Gatti and Rios are a couple of them, who are willing to endure pain to inflict pain," Moretti said. "These guys have an innate sense of, when they're taking punishment, they go, 'OK, that's the best you have? You just gave it to me, now I'm going to give you what I have.' He gets some kind of a satisfaction from beating on guys. You saw that so plainly for Rios in his last fight."
That was his title-winning effort over Miguel Acosta in Las Vegas on Feb. 26. Acosta had Rios wobbling and seemingly in trouble when Rios roared back and won by a 10th round stoppage when a battle-weary Acosta could barely raise his arms.
He won the title by taking the best Acosta had and just beating on him until Acosta succumbed.
"If you sign up to fight me, you know one thing for sure: As long as that fight is scheduled to go, you are going to get everything I have to give," Rios said. "Broken hand, broken nose, bad cut, whatever, I'm never going to stop.
"I've worked on my defense and tried to work on my head movement. I think I made some improvements, but let's be honest: It's not the best. I'm not kidding anyone. I am what I am as a fighter. To me, a great defense comes from having a great offense."
That kind of a style isn't going to make for a long career. Light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins has been around for more than two decades because he understood precisely what would happen to a fighter if he got in too many knock down, drag out brawls.
There's next to no chance that Rios will be fighting at 46, as Hopkins is doing. There's probably little chance that Rios will still be fighting at 36, given the kind of punishment he takes each time out.
It wears on the body and sooner or later, it can't take any more and essentially shuts down.
Rios (27-0-1, 20 KOs) isn't worried too much about the future when the present is so filled with promise. He retains the hubris of youth and has a hard time wrapping his hands around the concept of fighting smart, or doing anything but going forward at warp speed for three minutes of every round.
"I want the guys everyone says are the best," Rios said. "This guy, Antillon, he's making a lot of comments about what he can do. Well, does he know he hasn't fought me yet? He had a great fight with Soto, but the difference was when he fought Soto, Soto backed up. I won't back up. Anyone who has ever seen me knows that. You hit me, and I come and hit you back a lot harder."
The power of his punch remains perhaps the only question mark about him, aside from his less than stellar defense, of course.
The one thing that Gatti had was that snap in his punches that could rescue him when the situation was most dire. So, too, did the late, great Diego Corrales, whose power enabled him to knock out Jose Luis Castillo in 2005 in what remains one of the great fights of the 21st century.
When all was lost, Gatti and Corrales had that one reserve left that saved them on more than one occasion. It's something that Rios still needs to prove.
"I don't know if he has that one-punch power," Moretti said. "Gatti had it. Corrales had it. They could take you out when they needed it. With Brandon, I'm not sure he's got that. He's the kind of guy who will get you drunk and then he'll mug you. He's going to get you via attrition, which you saw in the Acosta fight,. He's going to throw so much that sooner or later, most guys are just going to kind of melt."
That style may not make for the longest career and it may not be the most technically correct, but none of that bothers Arum.
"It makes for damn good fights and at the end of the day, isn't that what this is all about anyway?" Arum said.
