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Diego Chaves, who faces Brandon Rios in a 10-round welterweight bout on Saturday night at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, had a difficult time just making it to the United States, which is to say nothing of how rough the fight could be. Chaves' visa was held up for a couple of weeks because of a State Department computer crash that prevented the United States from processing visas, impacting hundreds of thousands of travelers around the world. Finally, his visa was set, thanks to Nevada Sen. Harry Reid's office giving an assist to Top Rank. Chaves arrived in the United States on Thursday after a 15-hour trip from Argentina and missed the news conference because he was resting. Because he was in Argentina and not available to talk to the media during the bulk of the promotion, and then wasn't even at the news conference, he has not been heard from. But on Friday at the weigh in -- where he made the contract limit of 148 pounds and Rios made 147 -- Chaves said that he is quite familiar with Rios. "I know Rios very well. I watched his last two fights, against [Mike] Alvarado and [Manny] Pacquiao," Chaves said. "He's big and strong. I need to get into a rhythm to get this win. He's a warrior -- a great one -- but warriors can be beat. This will be war in the center of the ring." That seems like the likely result of the fight, because Rios (31-2-1, 23 KOs) is a straight-ahead brawler and Chaves (23-1, 19 KOs) also likes to mix it up, which was what he did the one time he was on American television, 13 months ago. That's when he lost his interim welterweight title by 10th-round knockout to Keith Thurman in a rumble.
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