By Keith Idec

Robert Garcia hopes Brandon Rios gets more credit for defeating Timothy Bradley than his fighter received for dominating Mike Alvarado in their rubber match Jan. 24 in Broomfield, Colorado.

Rios’ three-round destruction of Alvarado was met mostly with apathy because Alvarado was ill-prepared for a fight he should’ve postponed after getting arrested three weeks earlier. Alvarado acknowledged in a post-fight interview with HBO’s Jim Lampley that he wasn’t mentally or physically ready to fight, which took away from Rios’ technical knockout victory in their third fight.

“That’s something that I hated, but it is what it is,” Garcia, Rios’ trainer, said Wednesday during a conference call. “Brandon’s always gonna get that reputation, never gonna get that credit. We’ve had a few problems with the weight and stuff like that. But win or lose, people are still gonna say we’re the same guy, you know, Brandon’s the guy who gets hit with everything, no defense.

“Even after beating Bradley and becoming one of the top welterweights, I know there’s gonna be a lot of critics saying we’re still not there, we’re still maybe 15, 17, I don’t know, 20, in the top welterweights. Because that’s just the way it is. We didn’t get no credit for beating Alvarado. If Alvarado was not prepared or was not ready for the fight, it’s not our fault. Brandon went and did his job. And if it would’ve been the best Alvarado out there, Brandon would’ve went and did the same thing. But we’re never gonna get credit. We could beat Bradley, we could beat whoever’s next and I think it’s always gonna be the same thing with Brandon.”

The 32-year-old Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KOs, 1 NC), of Palm Springs, California, is a 5-1 favorite over the 29-year-old Rios (33-2-1, 24 KOs) approaching their 12-round fight Saturday night for Bradley’s WBO welterweight title at UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas (HBO; 9:30 p.m. ET). Rios is focused on battling Bradley, not the public’s perception of his most recent win against Alvarado (34-4, 23 KOs).

“I don’t get credit, but it’s all good,” said Rios, who went 2-1 versus Alvarado. “I don’t need credit. I’ve already got good credit. My credit’s really good. … I’ve got good credit, so I’m not really worrying about it. I could go buy me a house right now without a down payment because I have good credit. So I don’t need credit.”

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.