Tim Bradley to fight in October or November, wants Mayweather

By Boxing News - 05/15/2014 - Comments

bradley91By Dan Ambrose: Former WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (31-1, 12 KO’s) will be back in the ring in October or November, and he’s looking for a big name like Floyd Mayweather Jr to fight if possible. Bradley, 30, is coming off of a 12 round unanimous decision loss to Manny Pacquiao in their rematch last April, a fight which Bradley seemed to run out of gas in the last six rounds. Bradley says he tore a calf muscle in two places in the fight, and after that he was a sitting duck for Pacquiao’s shots.

“I’ll be back hopefully by October-November, that’s the goal,” Bradley said. I just want to fight the best. I tell people I don’t need a tuneup or a down grade. The only guy that I haven’t been in there with is Mayweather…bring it. I want to be the best fighter in the world. Why mess around with a guy that’s a top 20, when I can get in there and fight on HBO and fight…a top guy in the sport?”

The only problem that Bradley has is that there’s not much interest in Bradley getting a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr, especially now that Bradley has been beaten by Pacquiao. Why would Mayweather want to fight a guy who is coming off of a loss, and who he feels fought in an amateurish way and looked sloppy?

It’s good that Bradley wants to fight Mayweather, but losing to Pacquiao doesn’t automatically equate to Bradley getting a move up a level against boxing’s No.1 fighter Mayweather. Bradley is kind of looking at things backwards. When you lose a fight, you don’t get a bigger fight. You need to step backwards and rebuild, and that’ what Bradley will need to do.

There’s really no chance of Bradley getting a fight against Mayweather in today’s climate. Mayweather calls the shots, and not Golden Boy Promotions. Top Rank, who promotes Bradley, can make nice with Golden Boy, but it would still come down to whether Mayweather wants to fight Bradley with him being promoted by Top Rank. I think the answer would be no. Bradley had to know that when he re-signed with Top Rank recently, he was giving up any chance that he ever had in getting a fight against Mayweather. Bradley went ahead and re-signed with Top Rank anyway, and now he kind of has to live with his decision.

The chances are high that Bradley will end up fighting one of Arum’s fighters, like Jessie Vargas, Ruslan Provodnikov, Mike Alvarado or Brandon Rios. Those are Arum’s stable fighters, and he very likely be offered a fight against one of these names. Bradley probably won’t be too excited to fight Provodnikov again after his close call win over him last year. But the other three are likely who Bradley will pick from.

It’s likely that Arum will choose to put Bradley back in with Pacquiao at some point because he doesn’t have a lot of options for either guy in his stable. So he’ll likely bring them together next year if the two can keep winning.



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