Mayweather was brilliant, says Bradley

By Boxing News - 05/14/2015 - Comments

bradley73By Chris Williams: Top Rank fighter Tim Bradley (31-1-1, 12 KOs) was really impressed with what he saw of Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) in his 12 round unanimous decision win over Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) in their fight on May 2nd this month.

Bradley thought that Mayweather was nothing short of brilliant in that fight, and he sees him as right alongside the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard in terms of talent.

Bradley also was impressed with the performance from Pacquiao, who he feels punches like Sugar Ray Robinson. Bradley feels that Pacquiao will come back from his shoulder surgery and resume his career.

“Look, I’ve been in there with Manny, been there for 24 rounds” said Bradley via RingTV.com. “His power is real. Floyd did exactly what he had to. I thought Floyd was brilliant.”

Bradley has battled Pacquiao twice, beating him once and losing to him once. Bradley was able to neutralize Pacquiao’s offense in their first fight in 2012 when he used movement against the Filipino. But in their rematch 2014, Bradley, for some reason, chose to trade with Pacquiao in a toe-to-toe battle. Had Bradley chose to fight Pacquiao like he did in their first fight, he likely would have beaten him again.

Bradley also made mistakes of slugging with Ruslan Provodnikov and Diego Chaves in their fights. He didn’t lose those fights, but he took a lot of punishment. I think it’s pretty clear that Bradley needs to permanently adopt the original fighting style he used for the first Pacquiao fight if he wants to be successful in the future. He doesn’t have the size or the defensive skills to stand in the pocket the way Mayweather does.

“He the rest of his generation. He might not be better than the legends, but he deserves to be right alongside them,” Bradley said about Mayweather. “I mean, I think of Sugar Ray Leonard. Sugar Ray and Floyd would have been one hell of a fight. People have got to realize that Floyd is tremendous.”

I think it’s pretty clear that Mayweather is above the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard and Sugar Ray Robinson. Those were good fighters, but they fell apart every so often when they fought quality opposition. Leonard was arguably beaten by Tommy Hearns in their second fight, and we saw what happened with Leonard in his first fight against Roberto Duran.

Bradley will be fighting next month on June 27th against Jessie Vargas (26-0, 9 KOs) in a fight at welterweight from the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Bradley will likely get a rubber match against Pacquiao in the future if for no other reason because he’s in the same Top Rank stable.



Comments are closed.