Arum not sure if he’ll do Bradley-Vargas rematch

By Boxing News - 06/28/2015 - Comments

vargas986By Dan Ambrose: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum isn’t sure yet whether he’ll make the effort of putting together a rematch between interim WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KOs) and Jessie Vargas (26-1, 9 KOs).

Arum promotes both guys, so it wouldn’t be a big deal for him to put them back together again. But it might not work out well for Arum if he stages another fight again because it likely won’t draw big ratings due to the one-sided nature of their fight last Saturday night at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

The other negative is that Arum would be hurting the career of Vargas by having him get beaten again by Bradley. Vargas is the current WBA light welterweight champion, and if Arum wants him to keep his value with his Top Rank stable, he needs to make sure he’s winning. Vargas can’t be seen losing over and over again.

The only reason there would be any call for a rematch between Bradley and Vargas is to correct what happened in the last seconds of the 12th round when referee Pat Russell stopped the fight with 10 seconds to go because he thought the bell had sounded to end the fight. Bradley had been clipped with a hard right hand before by Vargas and he was seriously hurt. The first 11 rounds were as one-sided as you’ll ever see. For that reason, I don’t know that Arum would be making the right decision if he were to let Bradley and Vargas fight again.

“Maybe,” Arum said via the desertsun.com when asked if he’d be willing to put Vargas and Bradley back in with each other for a rematch.

Bradley won the fight by the judges’ scores of 115-112, 116-112 and 117-111.
Bradley landed 232 of 676 punches for a connect percentage of 34 percent, according to CompuBox. Vargas connected on 203 of 630 punches with a connect percentage of 32%. Bradley’s punches had much more power than Vargas’ shots, and Bradley was busier in almost every round. Vargas just couldn’t let his hands go when he needed to, especially in the 2nd half of the fight. He kept waiting around for the perfect moment to throw his punches, and unfortunately he let a lot of opportunities go by without throwing anything.

Arum can do better for Bradley to direct him towards other fights. Bradley is about to turn 32, and the last thing he needs is to get stuck fighting Vargas over and over again in one-sided fights.



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