Pressure on: It’s up to Rios to finish a show that started with lots of talk from a stand-in

There’s only one safe pick for Saturday night’s fight at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay between Brandon Rios and Richard Abril, unknown a month ago and known today only for not being shy. The fight won’t be as good as the news conferences.

How Abril walked into this fight is a matter of conjecture. Believe what you want, but there he was, in a tux and with more trash talk than Floyd Mayweather Jr., in last month on the very day when promoters knew they needed a stand-in for Yuriorkis Gamboa, a no-show then and seen since about as often as somebody in the witness-protection program.

“I was supposed to be with Gamboa, and all of a sudden this guy came in, and he started talking smack,” Rios said a couple of weeks ago in a conference call. “He came up to me and said, ‘I want to fight you.’

“I said, ‘Who are you? You look like an average guy with a tuxedo on.’

“He kept running his mouth saying, ‘I’m the champion, and you are nothing.’ I said, ‘You are the champion, and you want to fight me? There’s my manager, right there. Go talk to him.’ ”

Abril has done nothing but talk ever since in a series of circus-like news conferences. Other than the mouth, we know he has an interim 135-pound title, the ’s version. These days, you can get one of those belts off-the- rack. He’s lanky. He has one common opponent with Rios. Both beat Venezuelan Miguel Acosta. Rios stopped Acosta in the 10th round in February, 2011. Abril scored a 12-round decision over Acosta in October.

Maybe, it was just coincidence that Abril showed up in Miami. Nevertheless, he has played the only role he could to create interest in a fight that had generated widespread interest before Gamboa went missing. Gamboa –Rios had Fight of the Year potential. If the Rios-Abril and Juan Manuel Marquez-Sergey Fedchenko doubleheader does pay-per-view business, it will be the Save of the Year.

Abril, a Cuban, has been saying all of the things usually said in an attempt to generate sales, especially among Mexican and Mexican-American fans. At times, it sounds as if he is reading from a script, one used by promoters for decades.

“I’m here and not afraid of you,’’ Abril said to Rios Wednesday at the final news conference. “I’m the one who wanted this fight. You are not 100% Mexican. You talk a lot of smack.”

“I ride horses, listen to Mexican music and speak the language. I am more Mexican than Rios. He doesn’t even understand me when I yell at him in Spanish.”

Maybe not, but Rios (29-0-1, 22 KOs) probably understands this: All of the pressure is on him. He can’t afford to look anything but sensational against Abril (17-2-1, 8 KOs), who has never fought on a stage as big as the one he will step on to Saturday night in a telecast produced by and distributed by HBO.

A misstep of any kind against Abril would put a hold on Rios’ quest to become one of the game’s major stars. At stake, there is a possible fight on July 14 at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas against Marquez, if Marquez beats Fedchenko in Mexico City. Rios, who has never been shy either, has shoved Abril and slapped Abril’s trainer, Osmiri Fernandez. He has said an unknown will never beat him. Abril, he said, is in the darkness.

“And I will keep him there,’’ said Rios, who doesn’t plan on a rematch, not even at a news conference.