By Steve Kim
While there had been a lot of talk of a showdown between Brandon Rios and Tim Bradley for the fall, it looks as though this fight will not be happening. In theory, it should've been a relatively easy pairing, given that both are under the Top Rank banner.
The reality is that both wanted a certain amount of money which may have not fit into the current HBO budget.
"It's dead," confirmed Cameron Dunkin, who manages Rios.
Earlier in the day Dunkin was told by Todd duBoef, the president of Top Rank, that they simply couldn't make the numbers work.
"Todd called me and said he couldn't get the other side locked down, so no fight."
According to Dunkin, his fighter was more than willing to make financial concessions to make this match-up a reality.
"We knew at the end of the day we were both going to have to fight for less than what we wanted to fight to make the fight happen, we did. We took less, Brandon said,'If that's what we gotta do, that's what I'll do. I'll take less money but I want to fight him. Lets fight,'" Dunkin explained to BoxingScene.com.
"So I said OK, I started cutting it down and we were down to a number I thought we could definitely get."
Dunkin now works to find Rios - who hasn't fought since stopping Mike Alvarado back in late January - another assignment.
"Brandon will fight here in the fall, November 7th maybe, ( HBO) said they got an opening. We've just got to find a partner to dance with."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.