By Chris Robinson

Over the weekend I had a lengthy conversation with lightweight contender Brandon Rios, currently in camp in Oxnard, California gearing up for a shot at WBA champion Miguel Acosta on February 26th at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas. The 24-year old made quite the splash last year with dominant victories over Jorge Teron and Anthony Peterson and a clash against Acosta seems to be the perfect step for him at this point to prove whether he can hang with boxing’s elite.

Towards the end of our conversation I decided to get Rios’ take on the May 7th Manny Pacquiao-Shane Mosley bout at the MGM Grand. Rios has an interesting perspective on the contest as he was in camp with Pacquiao’s most recent foe, Antonio Margarito, last year and struck up quite the friendship with the former champion from Tijuana.

Margarito would get bludgeoned over twelve punishing rounds by Pacquiao’s whirlwind attack but Rios spoke with pride when assessing his friend’s effort.

“Even if the fight didn’t go as planned or expected, it’s because Pacquiao is a beast,” Rios said with respect. “There is only one Manny Pacquiao. There is only one boxer in the world who can do what he did. But Tony did his best, he showed the world that he has balls, and he got my respect 100%. Tony is my boy and he’s always been my boy. We consider each other brothers.”

In Pacquiao-Mosley we have a meeting between two tremendous fighters, although one of them seems to be removed from his peak years as Shane struggled in his recent fights against Floyd Mayweather and Sergio Mora, respectively. It’s not the mismatch that some are making it out to be given Mosley’s proven track record and stout power but Rios simply can’t get into the contest and was unforgiving when giving his two cents on the topic.

“I’m going for Pacquiao,” he continued. “Pacquiao is going to beat Mosley. I’m not really a big fan of that fight. I don’t know. Mosley didn’t really look too good against Sergio Mora. It’s going to be a big fight but I’m not going to pay for it. I’m going to go and watch it at one of my friend’s houses and let them pay for it. That fight just didn’t catch my attention that much.”

Rios was linked to the Pacquiao camp for unfortunate reasons last November when he was caught on tape mocking the Filipino star’s trainer, Freddie Roach. Rios and Margarito appeared to shake and stutter, an apparent jab at Roach’s ongoing Parkinson’s disease, and there was a wave of negative backlash that came from his actions.

Asked for his thoughts on the situation two months later, Rios speaks like a man who is simply ready to move on with his life.

“With Freddie Roach, what happened was that it came out the wrong way and the media blew it out of proportion. They made it seem like we were the bad guys and that we were making fun of [him]. But I put that behind me and if Freddie Roach can’t accept the fact that we said we were sorry and apologized for what we did, that’s his problem. Other than that, he’s going to do his thing and we are going to do our thing. I don’t care what other people say. It’s not going to mess up my mind if people do that. I’m not going to worry about that any more.”

Chris Robinson is based out of Las Vegas, Nevada. An archive of his work can be found here , and he can be reached at Trimond@aol.com