Last year was not a good year for Bryan Acosta.
In February, he lost a close unanimous decision to Ramon Cardenas. That was the first pro defeat for the fighter from Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, but at least he could find some consolation three months later after Cardenas went on to give undisputed junior featherweight champion Naoya Inoue a tough battle.
Acosta had a chance to turn things around last September, when he took on fringe featherweight contender Sulaiman Segawa. But Acosta lost again, this time via seventh-round TKO.
Now the 27-year-old Acosta is 20-2 (8 KOs). He is hoping that 2026 will be much better than 2025. And he has his first date to try to make that happen.
Acosta will face Ronny Rios on Saturday, March 28 at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California. The match will headline a show streaming on ProBox TV. (Note: ProBox and BoxingScene are both owned by Garry Jonas.)
Rios, 34-5 (17 KOs), is a 36-year-old from Santa Ana, California. Rios is a former contender who has all three of his world title shots. The first two came at junior featherweight: He was outpointed by Rey Vargas in 2017 and stopped in the final round by Murodjon Akhmadaliev in 2022. Rios’ record also includes a fifth-round TKO loss to Robinson Castellanos at featherweight/junior lightweight in 2014, and a sixth-round loss to Azat Hovhannisyan at junior featherweight in 2018.
After the loss to Akhmadaliev, Rios took 22 months off before returning in April 2024, beating the 21-5-1 Nicolas Polanco via fifth-round knockout. He went on to his third title shot, getting knocked down three times by Nick Ball and losing via 10th-round stoppage. That fight was in early October 2024, which means Rios will be coming off a nearly 18-month layoff.
David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter @FightingWords2. David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.
