Tonight (Saturday, August 2, 2014) in Las Vegas, welterweights Brandon Rios and Diego Gabriel Chaves clash over 10 rounds on the undercard of the Jessie Vargas vs Anton Novikov WBA World Light Welterweight title bout. Rios, who is 31-2-1 has lost two fights in a row, but he is favored this Saturday at (-170), with the comeback on Chaves at (+130). Chaves is a solid Argentinian boxer with a nice KO ratio approaching 80 percent. He is 23-1 overall, with his lone loss coming against Keith Thurman back in July of 2013. For the match with Thurman, which was for Chaves’ interim WBA World Welterweight Title he was behind all the way on the judge’s cards and the match ended a with Chaves KO’d in the 10th. Chaves entered a nearly 5 to 1 underdog for that match, so the line against Rios here is a bit tighter than expected. Yes, Rios has lost two in a row, but his losses are to highly regarded Mikey Alvarado (the pair are 1-1 overall in their 2 bouts) and all-world champion Manny Pacquiao, so his level of competition has been higher than Chaves. Thurman is Chaves best opponent, and other than that his competition comes mainly from his homeland of Argentina. Thurman stopped Chaves in the 10th, while Rios went the distance both times. Rios is under a little bit of pressure to win this fight. He was dominated by Pacquiao and somehow survived the fight on his feet, but he needs a strong performance if he is to keep company with the top draws in the game. Rios could use a KO to add to his resume here. Chaves would love to steal a page out of the book of Chris Algieri, who recently stunned Ruslan Provodnikov as an underdog. Now Algieri is signed to meet Pacquiao for big money in what is certainly the biggest fight of his career. If Chaves can break through and take out Rios, which has never been done, then he hopes his name will be in the hat for big money as well.
