Ronny Rios: I'll Always Be Trying To Prove Myself

By Thomas Gerbasi

Ronny Rios has jokes. Even on fight week. Usually that’s the worst time to catch a fighter for a few words about an upcoming bout, but the Santa Ana native was loose and at ease before tonight’s Fox Sports 1 headliner against Robinson Castellanos at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio.

It’s the unbeaten featherweight prospect’s fourth appearance in the venue, so why not ask if fighting in the same place a few times removes one level of anxiety because you know the lay of the land, so to speak. Rios agrees that it does.

“It takes a lot of pressure off fight night because you already know the restaurants and which ones to go to, so that helps,” he deadpans. “And when I go to these restaurants, I already know what to order. That’s something good. And the dressing rooms are really nice too, so I really like it there.”

He laughs, but admits that talking about restaurants and eating a few days before a fight isn’t a sign of a fighter struggling to make weight.

“No, I’m fine,” Rios, who clocked in at 128 pounds to Castellanos’ 127 for the junior lightweight matchup. “You just crave certain things after a weigh-in or when you’re in training camp.”

Sushi and shaved ice with ice cream (not together, mind you) are on his current crave list, but they will have to wait for Friday night, as he’s got business to tend to first with Castellanos, a sturdy Mexican fighter with a deceptive 19-10 record that doesn’t come with a disclaimer that the Guanajuato native started out 5-8 as a pro. Rios knows what he’s in for with the vet.

“He’s a veteran,” Rios said. “He’s an older guy so he’s going to have a lot of experience, and he has a solid win over (former world champion) Celestino Caballero, so I don’t see a guy with ten losses. I see somebody that can beat you if you let him. Obviously anybody can do that. If you go in with the mentality that this guy has a loss or this guy doesn’t have punching power, that’s the one that gets you.”

The 24-year-old doesn’t look like he’s going to get got for a while. Already the owner of wins over former world titleholder Rico Ramos, Leonilo Miranda, Roger Gonzalez, and Andrew Cancio, the 23-0 (10 KOs) Rios isn’t on the fast track to a world title shot, but maybe he should be. A win over Castellanos should be another step in the right direction, and in 2015, could that title shot be in the picture?

“That’s the plan,” he said. “I can’t really start demanding people because I feel like I’m not up there yet, but that would be the ideal road.”

Those are words not usually heard from the mouths of 23-0 fighters who haven’t reached the age of 25 yet. But Rios is a grounded young man, something he says he owes to a family that doesn’t treat him like a hot prospect, but like Ronny.

“That’s just me and it’s always going to be me,” he said. “I’m always surrounded by my family, and they’re not the type of people who are like ‘oh, you’re ranked here, you’re ranked there, you’re undefeated.’ They treat me the same now as they treated me before, and to me, I’m still that young guy trying to prove himself, and think I’m always going to be trying to prove myself until the day I stop fighting.”

That’s no joke, and it could be what allows him to succeed where so many of his peers fail. At a certain level of the game, everyone can fight; it’s those who have the mental toughness and the right attitude who move on to win titles and earn big paydays. Rios has those tools and intangibles, and he has the backing of a high-powered promoter in Golden Boy. All good things. The bad? The target everyone he fights puts on his back, because taking out an unbeaten boxer with a big promoter is every journeyman or contender’s dream. That’s not something that keeps Rios up at night scouring youtube for fight videos in order to beat his opponents.

“If I do stay up until two in the morning, it’s because of movies,” he laughs, but when he does get serious about the topic at hand, he says “I don’t put too much thought or emphasis on that. If anything, it’s like what I told my coach a couple weeks ago. Maybe it’s just my mindset that I’m the one that has to go out there and prove something to myself.”

Now constantly trying to one-up yourself CAN keep a fighter up at night, but it can also make him a world champion. So expect the best out of Rios tonight, because that’s all he’ll settle for.

“When people always ask you what’s been your favorite fight or what’s been your most important fight, the same response I always give them is ‘the next one.’”

That’s not a bad way to think if you’re a prizefighter.