Tim Bradley back in the ring on February 9th on HBO

By Boxing News - 12/04/2012 - Comments

Image: Tim Bradley back in the ring on February 9th on HBOBy Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (29-0, 12 KO’s) will be back in the ring on February 9th against an opponent still to be determined on HBO, according to Steve Kim. Bradley, 29, threw away a perfect opportunity to get a fight in before this year against Lamont Peterson but wasn’t interested in that fight.

Bradley instead chose to wait for a bigger fight. He wants a rematch against Manny Pacquiao, who he beat by a questionable 12 round last June. Pacquiao has no interest in facing Bradley, and it’s doubtful that Bradley will be getting anyone even close to resembling a big name for his next fight. He might as well have fought in December because he’s not going to get much for his February fight.

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum will likely look to match Bradley against one of his stable fighters but there’s not much to pick from.

Bradley is going to have to be matched really carefully because if they put him in with someone too good he’s going to get beat. He doesn’t have power and he’s going to struggle if Arum doesn’t look for a soft opponent for him.

Here are the top contenders the WBO has ranked:

Bethel Ushona
Jan Zaveck
Shawn Porter
Luis Carlos Abregu
Dmitriy Mikhaylenko
Frankie Gavin
Mike Jones

Those probably aren’t the types of opponents that Bradley will be looking to fight in February. Peterson would be clearly a better option than any of those guys.

Don’t be surprised if you see Bradley facing someone like Ruslan Provodnikov. HBO is going to have to agree to whoever Arum finds for Bradley, so hopefully this means that he’s going to end up fighting someone decent.

If Bradley can keep wining we’ll likely see him back in with Pacquiao once Arum has exhausted his other Top Rank options for Pacquiao to fight. Pacquiao is likely to face Brandon Rios next April, and after that we could see a Bradley-Pacquiao rematch unless Arum matches Pacquiao back up with Marquez for a 5th fight.



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