By Allan Fox: ESPN analyst Teddy Atlas thinks WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (29-0, 12 KO’s) will have too much speed for #2 WBO 140 pound contender Ruslan Provodnikov (22-1, 15 KO’s) in their fight next month on March 16th at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California, USA. This will be Bradley’s first defense of his World Boxing Organization title, and he’s picked out a guy he thinks he can beat in 29-year-old Provodnikov.
Atlas said on ESPN, “Provodnikov – he’s going come forward, he’s going to try and get in your wheelhouse, he’s going to try and go to your body, but he’s also predictable. He’s also not the hardest guy to find in the world. Provodnikov is right there. I think Bradley is too fast for him. I think Bradley is too versatile for him. If Provodnikov is going to pull off an upset, and it has to be a huge upset, he’s going to have to find a way to impose his physicality, and impose his will on Bradley. That’s not easy to do because Bradley is the same size. It’s not as if Provodnikov is going to have a size advantage. They’re both junior welterweights their whole career. Bradley has a damn good will; he’s got off the floor to win. His will doesn’t get broken…[speaking about Bradley’s inactivity]. The way it hurts him is financially. He’s made the choice go after someone he thinks he can handle more than a money guy.”
The one thing that Atlas has left out of his analysis of the Bradley-Provodnikov fight is the power of the Russian Provodnikov. He may be slower, and he may be less experienced against quality fighters, but he does have a power advantage over Bradley. It may not be a big advantage, but it’s definitely there.
Provodnikov punchers harder with either hand than Bradley, and if he can get him to brawl with him, it could be a tough fight for Bradley. We saw Bradley mostly moving to avoid exchanges with Manny Pacquiao in his last fight in June of last year, but when Bradley did trade, he didn’t look good. He looked slow, like he’d lost a lot of his hand speed in bulking up to get to 147.
Bradley only won the fight because Pacquiao gassed out, and struggled with Bradley’s constant movement. Provodnikov doesn’t have stamina problems, and he’s pretty good at cutting off the ring on his opponents.
Comments are closed.