Pacquiao-Bradley negotiations at an impasse

By Boxing News - 01/24/2014 - Comments

bradley17By Chris Williams: The negotiations between Manny Pacquiao and Tim Bradley have hit a snag, according to Fighthype. It seems that Top Rank wants to lock the 30-year-old Bradley into a multi-fight contract extension as part of giving him the second fight against the 35-year-old Pacquiao. In other words, for Bradley to get the rematch with Pacquiao, he’ll have to re-sign with Top Rank for a certain amount of fights, even though it’s Top Rank who wants Bradley to fight Pacquiao in the first place.

Bradley’s contract with the company is said to be done by the end of the year. Bradley still has at least one fight left in his current contract with Top Rank after the Pacquiao bout, and it’s unclear why they would push for him to re-sign right now rather waiting for his final fight of the year to attempt to re-sign him. But I guess the Pacquiao fight is considered to be the better fight to use for leverage to get him to re-sign due to the huge payday that Bradley will be getting for the fight.

Other than that one issue, Bradley is said to be close to signing for the rematch with Pacquiao.

If Bradley signs another mult-fight contract with Top Rank then he can kiss goodbye any chance of ever getting a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the near future. Bradley would also find himself in a position where he’d be pretty much left fighting the other Top Rank stable fighters – Brandon Rios, Mike Alvarado, Mikey Garcia, and Terence Crawford – instead of being able to get a shot at some more interesting fights against the likes of Mayweather, Amir Khan, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Danny Garcia, Lamont Peterson and Lucas Matthysse.

I guess Bradley would have to ask himself if it would be worth it to sign a long term contract and then be in the boat where he’d be fighting Rios, Alvarado, Crawford and Garcia for would could be the remainder of his career if Arum doesn’t add new blood to his stable. If I was Bradley, I wouldn’t much like the idea of being stuck fighting Rios, Alvarado, Crawford and Garcia over and over again in rematches. I’d like to get some new fighters so I’m stuck in a rut and losing my fan base due to the boring re-tread opponents.



Comments are closed.