By Ryan Burton

Featherweight contender Ronny Rios (26-1) is in the final stages of his training camp for his December 16th clash against Roy Tapia (12-1-2).  The fight takes place at the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio,Calif. underneath the HBO Latino tripleheader broadcast.  Slava Shabranskyy faces Sullivan Barrera in the main event while Eddie Gomez faces Rashidi Ellis and Antonio Orozco squares off against Fidel Maldonado to round out the telecast.

Even though it sounds cliche, Rios said that he will put on a spectacular performance and is in the best shape of his career.

"Training has been phenomenal. Everyone always says this but it is true this is probably my best camp ever. We just have about a week or so to go and we are ready to go," said Rios.

The 26-year-old Southern California native had a career best performance last November when he defeated former title challenger Jayson Velez on the Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez pay-per-view undercard.  One would think that type of win on a high profile card would have propelled his career but he has only had one fight since, a 2nd round knockout on a smaller profile card.

"Trust me Ryan, we said the same thing too but obviously I can't control that. I can't mention any names but I had been sidelined for a while even before my last fight and then after. It wasn't my fault and it was just a hurdle we had to get over and now I am back and ready to go," Rios explained.

If everything goes well against Tapia, Rios wants to be fast tracked and he has an opponent in mind.  Rios would like to get a crack at the vacant WBC super bantamweight championship, which was recently vacated by Hozumi Hasegawa - who retired last week.

"I want a title shot after this. I want to get down to 122 and go [for the WBC world title]. It is one fight at a time but that is my plan. I am focused on Tapia and then I want to go on and get [at title shot]," Rios revealed.

Capturing the world title would just be the checking off the first goal for the ambitious Rios.

"My goal isn't just to win one title. I want to unify the division and after that then I can move up in weight to even bigger things," Rios told krikya360.com.

Send questions or comments to ringsidewriter@gmail.com. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ringsidewriter