With Brandon Rios having the biggest fight of his career coming up tomorrow against Manny Pacquiao, his trainer Robert Garcia explained that Rios tried to get a shot at Juan Manuel Marquez two or three years ago in what would have been his biggest challenge to date.
Garcia claims that Marquez straight up told him he didn’t want to fight Rios because he was a dangerous fighter that would pose a threat to his career.
“He (Marquez) told me, ‘Why would I fight somebody like Brandon? Somebody young, somebody that could end up hurting me,’” Garcia said of what Marquez told him on about not wanting to fight Rios.
Although the conversation hasn’t been confirmed by Marquez or his camp, it is a believable statement looking at how Marquez chose to forgo a fifth match with Pacquiao and opted for a bout that he thought would be an match up with in Timothy Bradley.
Despite his logic we all saw Marquez get beat by Bradley last month en route to a split-decision loss and showed that even the “easy way out” is not always the best decision.
The winner of the Pacquiao-Rios bout tomorrow has a good chance at fighting Bradley next for his WBO welterweight title. The fight would give Pacquiao a chance to redeem himself for the highly controversial split-decision loss last year and a Bradley fight would give Rios another shot at adding a big name fighter to his steadily growing resume.
