By Dan Ambrose: Former WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley could be fighting for the WBC middleweight title against Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KO’s) in December without being ranked in the division, says Steve Kim. There’s still nothing official yet, but the word is that Bradley has been offered a fight against the 33-year-old Cotto at a catch-weight of 156 pounds to accommodate him.
Bradley has never fought above welterweight before, but now he’ll be skipping the junior middleweight division and going straight to middleweight to fight for the title against WBC champ Miguel Cotto.
Bradley is going to have major problems in trying to keep Cotto off of him in this fight, because he doesn’t have the power needed for him to slow Cotto down. He also can’t move well enough to keep out of the way of Cotto for 12 rounds. Sooner or later Cotto will catch up to him and knock him silly.
Cotto is the Ring middleweight champion by virtue of his recent 10th round stoppage win over 39-year-old Sergio Martinez earlier this month on June 7th. As such, Bradley will be fighting for that title as well if/when he fights Cotto. The No.1 ranked middleweight below Cotto is Gennady Golovkin. So what we could see potentially is Bradley becoming the Ring middleweight champion if he beats Cotto in this fight, even though the fight won’t take place at the full weight for the 160 pound championship.
The scary part is that Bradley could become the Ring champion if he beats Cotto, and he’d be recognized as the best middleweight in the division instead of Golovkin. Cotto already looks like the paper Ring middleweight champion because he beat the nearly 40-year-old Martinez to claim that title instead of Golovkin, who most boxing experts see as by the far the much better fighter than Cotto or any of the other middleweights.
Cotto is the most popular middleweight, but not seen as the best, which is why the Ring’s decision to install him as their Ring champion is kind of funny. And it now sets up a situation where a welterweight with zero power could wind up winning the Ring title, along with the WBC middleweight title if he beats Cotto.
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