Rios Is Loose Ahead Of Saturday Fight

Rios with newly crowned WBC/WBO bantamweight champion Nonito “Filipino Flash” Donaire.  (Tom Casino)

LAS VEGAS (Feb. 23, 2011) – As Miguel Acosta and Brandon Rios met with media members for a light workout on Wednesday, newly crowned WBC/WBO bantamweight champion and Top Rank-promoted fighter Nonito “Filipino Flash” Donaire stopped by the Top Rank Gym, laughing and joking with the fighters and the media and even playfully snatched award-winning SHOWTIME photographer Tom Casino’s camera to take a couple of action shots of his own.

The WBA’s No. 1 lightweight contender Rios (26-0-1, 18 KOs) will fight for his first world title belt on the year’s first SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING telecast Saturday, Feb. 26, LIVE on SHOWTIME at 10 p.m. ET/PT (delayed on the West Coast) when he faces current WBA lightweight champion Acosta (28-3-2, 22 KOs) in the 12-round main event. In the co-feature, talented Mexican fighters Antonio DeMarco (24-2-1, 18 KOs) and Reyes Sanchez (20-3-1, 11 KOs) will do battle. The Rios-Acosta fight will take place at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas and the DeMarco-Sanchez affair will originate from the Heartland Events Center in Grand Island, Neb.

Said Rios: “Yeah, this fight is a lot of pressure but I think you're going to see me putting on the pressure and you're going to see Acosta running.”

Added Acosta: “This is without a doubt the biggest fight of my career. The (Urbano) Antillon fight was big but this is the biggest opportunity in my career. Rios is a strong guy and dangerous. To fight him in Vegas is huge.”

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