In the center of a tall whiteboard standing near a wall in the Pure Technik Boxing Gym is written a question in letters almost too small for the big question it asks: “How bad do you want it?”
San Antonio boxer Rianna Rios wanted it badly enough to reach a pinnacle of her sport at age 29, winning the Bantamweight World Boxing Association International Championship by unanimous decision in Washington, D.C. in June. Rios is currently ranked No. 1 in the U.S. and 8th in the world.
Now she wants to claim the world title.
Fighting vs. boxing
Rios grew up around the sport. Based in the town of Alice near Corpus Christi, her father, Salamon Mungia, was a professional boxer and began coaching Rios when she was 9 years old.
“I fell in love with the sport,” she said, and persisted after her younger brothers turned to other sports.
She liked to fight, even on the playground, she said, but her father tried to talk her out of it. “He put me in the ring with one of the boys who had had a handful of bouts, and I got beat up.”
His advice rang in her ears: “You may think you know how to fight, but you don’t know how to box. They’re two totally different things.”
From that moment, she said she focused on discipline and skill. “My goal was to get better so I can beat up that little boy and get it back,” she said, referring to her wounded pride.
As early as age 14, she had an answer to the whiteboard question. When Mungia challenged her by asking whether she would take boxing seriously, she said she told him, “I want to be a world champion.”
Refuse to lose
Determination showed early in national tournament wins at ages 14 and 15, and remains key to her success. Her coach Jeffery Mays attributes Rios’ rise through the ranks to her stubborn refusal to give in even when exhausted or reeling from an opponent’s blows.
”She just has that mentality,” Mays said, “Like, ‘You will not beat me, I refuse to lose.’”
So far, Rios has stood by her words with an undefeated WBA record of 8-0. After winning the bantamweight championship in June, she awaits her next opponent, though all comers seem to have shied away from the challenge. Rios and her team must wait until WBA commissioners decide to assign her a bout.
“It comes with the territory,” she said. “Boxing is really political. You don’t really see that side of boxing unless you follow it in detail.”
Asked why nobody wants to box her, Rios said with a glint in her eye, “Eventually, they’re gonna have to.”
When an opponent finally enters the ring with Rios, they will face a southpaw with a hidden strength.
“My ring IQ is far more superior than most women I’m in there with. I like to use my brain a lot more than my grit,” she said.
The way Rios described ring IQ, other boxers must think she has a sixth sense.
“I see little body movements or body mechanics or hand placement or foot placement,” and like tells in a poker game, “those little telling signs tell me what you’re gonna do before you do it. They’ll throw a punch and I’ll already be out of the way. Or I’ll be hitting them as they’re throwing the punch because I can see what’s coming.”
And avoiding a punch is important, she said.
“I’m big on not getting punched. I love boxing, but nobody really likes to get punched in the face,” she said.
Big on the little things
Mays trains her to use her intelligence and instincts to put her in positions to avoid taking hits while delivering punches, such as a lunge-avoiding dip and uppercut to the gut area they worked on during a recent gym visit.
“Coach Mays is big on those little things, those fundamental things,” Rios said. “That’s why he has the pedigree of being an Olympic coach. He has all the tools. He’ll give them to me, but it’s my turn to put them to use.”
Rios Mays first met Rios when she qualified for Team USA Olympic trials in 2017. At the time, Mays was an Olympic coach and Rios was a U.S. Army Sergeant. Mays had also served in the Army in the 1990s and passed through San Antonio on a boxing jaunt.
“I fell in love with the place and so I said, ‘When I retire, I’m coming back to San Antonio,” Mays said. “It’s got everything I need. I love hunting and fishing, and it’s a big military city and it’s a big boxing town” with a rich boxing history and an estimated 35 to 40 boxing gyms, he said.
During her Olympic experience, Rios saw that Mays could help maximize her potential. “We just kind of clicked with each other,” Mays said. But Rios had other plans and decided to take her amateur success forward and turn professional. “She asked me to work her corner at her last two national championships,” Mays said, with successful results.
Coach Rios
Rios is also following in the footsteps of her father and Mays by coaching younger boxing hopefuls.
On a recent afternoon, she spent several minutes patiently and deftly taping the hands of Aidan Halsey, a 17-year-old visiting from California who has trained for three years.
Halsey had heard of Rios through Mays, who recommended her as his best fighter. “Then one day she worked my corner” during a sparring match at the gym, which he said was “probably my best one I ever had.”
He said her coaching “made me able to think. Usually I don’t think when I spar, I just throw.”
Rios said, “The hardest thing about young boxers is taking advice, listening and trying to implement what you’re teaching them. … that’s one of the things [Halsey] has as a boxer that not very many kids at his age have.”
Stay on your toes
Another young boxer listening to Rios is Sidney Retiz, at 15 years old already a multiple-time national champion in the 95-pound category. As Retiz worked out in the Pure Technik ring, Rios offered advice while exercising on the floor.
“Stay on your toes and then pivot, so your ankles don’t get stuck,” Rios hollered.
Retiz is well aware of Rios’ accomplishments and appreciates the time and attention. “She’s a professional, and she’s much more advanced than I am. She saw me, she noticed who I am.”
Rios provides a template for Retiz, a fellow Rio Grande Valley native, to follow as a young female boxer. “One day I want to try to represent females in the Valley … and here we have Rianna. She’s already doing it.”
