By Keith Idec

All it took Wednesday was for Brandon Rios to simply suspect a question regarding Victor Ortiz was about to be asked.

That prompted an aggravated Rios to unload on Ortiz, his longtime rival from Kansas, during an interview with BoxingScene.com following his open workout in Lynwood, California. Rios referred to Ortiz as “a retarded motherf***er” and reiterated that it was Ortiz, not him, that didn’t want their long-discussed grudge match to happen recently.

Many fans and reporters have questioned why Rios and Ortiz aren’t finally fighting each other February 17, rather than facing former welterweight champions Danny Garcia and Devon Alexander, respectively, on separate cards that night.

“At the end of the day, f*** that fool, man,” Rios said.

“He’s trying to get a piece of the pie because no one’s talking about him. So what he does – he’ll put his name out in the media. He’ll saying something ridiculous, crazy, so everybody could start talking about him again. That’s what he does.

“So I’m not really worrying about him at this point. He can say whatever he wanna say, he can do whatever he wanna do, he can go jerk off another guy. I’m not really worrying about the guy no more. So it’s like he’s done to me. It’s done.”

Ortiz mocked the suggestion that he doesn’t want to face Rios during a video interview posted recently on the Premier Boxing Champions’ website. Rios emphasized, though, that the primary reason he signed with Al Haymon’s PBC was to secure a fight against Ortiz.

“His comeback fight and my comeback fight were supposed to be together [last summer],” Rios said. “They offered him the fight, but he turned it down. That’s why I left Top Rank, to come and chase that fight. I was chasing that fight. So I left Top Rank and the first fight I had, I told my adviser, Lupe Valencia, to tell Al Haymon, I told him, ‘Al Haymon, I want that fight. Give me that fight.’ And he said, ‘OK.’

“They went to Ortiz and they offered him whatever. And you know what he said? ‘No, I’m not fighting him. I need to fight somebody else.’ So that’s what happened. So my last fight, that’s why Aaron Herrera stepped up. So they gave me Aaron Herrera. He had an opportunity fight me, but he didn’t want it. So that opportunity passed.”

The 31-year-old Rios (34-3-1, 25 KOs), of Oxnard, California, knocked out Mexico’s Herrera (33-8-1, 22 KOs) in the seventh round of their June 11 bout in Lancaster, California. Seven weeks later, the 31-year-old Ortiz (32-6-2, 25 KOs), of Ventura, California, knocked out Mexico’s Saul Corral (28-10, 19 KOs) in the fourth round of their July 30 fight in Bakersfield, California.

Rios and Ortiz are underdogs in their upcoming matches.

Showtime will air Rios’ fight against Philadelphia’s Garcia (33-1, 19 KOs) from Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. Earlier that night, FOX will broadcast Ortiz’s bout with St. Louis’ Alexander (27-4, 14 KOs) from the Don Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas.

Whatever happens in their fights February 17, Rios isn’t consumed with opposing Ortiz.

“Why am I gonna chase him again?,” Rios said. “I already did what I had to do, you know? I mean, I chased him already. I came to Al Haymon to try to fight him, and I left Top Rank. He didn’t want it. So why am I gonna chase a dog? I can’t chase a dog that has his tail behind his legs. I can’t do that.”

When asked why he thinks Ortiz didn’t want to fight him, Rios pointed out that’s a question for Ortiz to answer.

“Why do you think he didn’t want it?,” Rios said. “I have no idea. … If he didn’t want it, he didn’t want it. He didn’t want it. He just didn’t want it. You should go ask him why he didn’t want it.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.