Urbano Antillon fights Brandon Rios for WBA lightweight title

Sharing ambition and geography doesn’t mean boxers Urbano Antillon and Brandon Rios have much in common.

“I wouldn’t really like to get to know him beyond what I already know,” Antillon said of Rios. “He seems very insecure, immature. He has a different energy than me.”

Antillon, 28, was raised in Maywood, the son of a construction worker who had his sons play sports — baseball, football, karate — to keep them distracted from the streets.

When Antillon was a child and money was tight, Urbano Sr. pulled Urbano Jr. from dues-requiring karate classes and signed up his son to learn boxing for free at a nearby gym.

Antillon not only learned the sport, but he gave back to the community, working for about five years at a Maywood recreation center encouraging local kids to follow his lead.

Saturday, less than 20 miles south of his hometown, Antillon (28-2, 20 knockouts) seeks the World Boxing Assn. lightweight title against the newly crowned Rios (27-0-1, 20 KOs) at Home Depot Center in Carson. Showtime will televise the bout.

Rios, 25, has trained in Oxnard since being a U.S. Olympic team alternate from Kansas in 2004.

“He’s been a little bit of a wild kid, even though he’s settling down now with his wife — he’s not boozing, not running wild in the streets anymore,” fight promoter Bob Arum said.

Arum has previously threatened to drop Rios’ contract after past instability that included fights on Ventura County streets and learning of another incident when the promoter needed a fighter to fill a card only to be told Rios wasn’t available — he was in a Kansas jail after another scuffle.

Before Rios won the world title in February by rallying to score a 10th-round technical knockout of Miguel Acosta, he was best known for insensitively mocking the Parkinson’s condition of Manny Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach, last year in an online video.

As for Antillon, he lost his last title shot by a close decision in December in Anaheim to WBC lightweight champion Humberto Soto.

But Antillon’s late-round resilience nearly produced a knockdown, and the Soto bout was generally considered runner-up for 2010 fight of the year. Antillon’s other loss was ninth-round TKO defeat at the hands of Acosta in July 2009.

“Antillon has cumulative power,” Arum said. “There’ll be a million punches in this fight [Saturday]. Everyone will be entertained.”

Rios said: “Everyone knows how I fight: Beat the [heck] out of the guy every round.”

Antillon and Rios have already had a moment when they had to be separated at a news conference after some trash talk.

“I don’t feel bad. If [the tension] is extra motivation, I’ll take it,” Antillon said.

Said Rios: “That heated me up. I’m going to destroy him and move on.”

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

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