It was a pop quiz. Ronny Rios spent 12 rounds popping Oscar Negrete, from hairline to beltline.
When it was over and his hand was raised in the middle of the ring at Fantasy Springs Resort, Rios said he would only give himself a C. He did say he’s looking forward to finals.
Rios continued to thrive in his personal Chapter 2. He lost only one of a possible 30 rounds on the judges’ cards, and he threw and landed more punches than the hyperactive Negrete did.
It was Rios’ fourth consecutive victory and boosted him to 33-3. He is now approaching the championship level that he thought he never would see again.
“I’m not going to sugar-coat it, I think I can do a lot better than that,” Rios said. “I should have sat down on my punches a little more.”
Negrete, who has fought for championships and never has been stopped in a 19-3-2 career, could have used a Kevlar vest and a bicycle. He stood in front of Rios and thus absorbed 125 body shots out of Rios’ 290 punches. Of that number, all but 22 were deemed power shots by CompuBox, and Rios’ methods were elemental: Whack the ribs and then come upstairs with uppercuts. He never abandoned them.
Rios and Brian Castano, the Argentinian who took Patrick Teixeira’s WBO super-welterweight title in a unanimous decision, carried the night in Indio. The main event was already tarnished when IBF 130-pound champ Jo Jo Diaz missed the weight limit by a ridiculous 3.6 points on Friday.
Diaz lost his title and challenger Shavkat Rakhimov couldn’t pick it up. He let Diaz rally at the end to salvage a majority draw, which leaves the belt unclaimed for the time being. Diaz won 115-113 on one card. The other two came out 114-114.
“I wasn’t real happy with my performance,” said Diaz of El Monte, who is now 31-1-1. “ With COVID, there was no sauna, no gym to work out in. It wasn’t as professional here as it should be.”
Coming into Saturday night, Rios, 31, is making a comeback in a sport that frowns upon them. These days in boxing you’re either undefeated or unclean.
Rios bought into that unforgiveness. He had lost only once when Rey Vargas dominated him in a WBC super bantamweight title fight four years ago. There was no shame in that, but it stalled Rios’ rise on the Golden Boy Promotions ladder.
The next year, Rios lost to Arat Hovhannisyan in the sixth round and thought he’d removed his gloves for good. It seemed like a good jumping-off point into the real world, where you don’t need weigh-ins before you go to work.
“I was in a downward spiral,” Rios said Friday. “I had checked out. I didn’t want anything to do with boxing anymore. For a whole year I didn’t even go to the gym.”
The gym is TKO Boxing in Santa Ana, where Hector Lopez was and is his coach. Usually the trainer and the wife are the ones quietly nudging the boxer out of the ring. Here, Lopez and Rios’ wife Daniela were reeling him back in.
“It turned out to be pretty stressful to do anything else,” Rios said. “Bringing in money was hard. I got into real estate and got a couple of deals, but it wasn’t consistent. I was driving for Uber, I was helping my mother clean offices. I was out of the house for 16 hours a day.
“We got down on our luck and I decided I needed to give this another shot. But this time I needed to do it for myself. One day I was in the gym and I asked myself, why have I been so scared to fail? I had already failed. I had to get over the hump. Hector told me to accept the good days, don’t be so hard on myself.”
Without question the essential moment was Rios’ sixth-round knockout of Diego De La Hoya, 21-0 at the time.
“I just felt more free in the ring,” Rios said. “The vibes were positive. I didn’t stay home that week, and when I got back to the hotel after the fight, there was my wife and my son (Nicholas). I didn’t know they were coming, so that was a nice surprise, very touching.”
It also helps that Rios is back down at 122 pounds, where his punching seismology is more damaging. He said as long as he keeps making the limit easily, that’s where he’ll stay.
He also intends to remain the teacher. Judging from Saturday, sleeping in his class is not only permitted but advisable.
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