Arum wants to match Bradley against Mayweather in September

By Boxing News - 06/29/2015 - Comments

bradley#1By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is hoping Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) will want to contact him about a fight against his fighter Tim Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KOs) for Mayweather’s next fight on September 12th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Arum believes that the 31-year-old Bradley can give Mayweather his best fight out of all the available guys for him to face. Bradley has already dismissed the idea of facing Jessie Vargas (26-1, 9 KOs) in a rematch after beating him by a slightly controversial 12 round unanimous decision last Saturday night at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

Arum said he’d setup a rematch between Bradley and Vargas if he wants a second fight, but it doesn’t look like that’s what Bradley has in mind. He’s looking for a bigger fight than that, and he feels there’s no reason for him to go over old ground in facing a guy that he dominated for 11 rounds.

It’s very unlikely that Mayweather will bother facing Bradley in September. It’s not just because he’s promoted by Arum, although I think that’s a fairly big reason why he won’t take the fight, but mostly because it’s not a fight that would bring in a lot of pay-per-view buys.

Bradley’s two fights with Manny Pacquiao failed to bring in over one million buys, and Bradley’s fight against Juan Manuel Marquez in 2013 also brought in disappointing PPV numbers. If Mayweather wants an opponent who can’t bring in PPV buys, he can find them almost anywhere. In other words, Mayweather doesn’t need to sign up for a fight against Bradley just to find someone who can’t bring in the fans.

“If Mayweather is looking around for an opponent, the guy capable of giving him the best fight, who is available, is Bradley,” Arum said via ESPN.com. “Many people would agree with that. I’ve let it be known, and now it’s Mayweather’s decision. So now I’m waiting for a call from his people or not. I’m not waiting with baited breath by my phone, but they know where to call me. If they call me, I will try to set up the fight. We showed from Mayweather-[Manny] Pacquiao fight things could be worked out.”

Mayweather would be doing Arum and Bradley a huge favor if he volunteered to give Bradley a fight. If Mayweather were to give Bradley a payday, he’d very likely get the biggest purse of his career because we’ve already seen that Pacquiao couldn’t draw in his two fights with Bradley.

It’s doubtful that Arum will be able to get a big fight for Bradley. That means that Bradley will have to defend his WBO title against the WBO mandatory challenger Sadam Ali (22-0, 13 KOs) in a fight that Arum wants to stage in Dubai in November. You can bet that the attendance will be low for that fight because there’s not too many Americans who are going to fly all the way to the United Arab Emirates to see Bradley face Sadam Ali. It’s not a big fight.



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