By Dan Ambrose: After briefly telling Jessie Vargas (26-1, 9 KOs) last Saturday that he would give him a rematch if he wanted one, WBO interim welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (32-2-1, 12 KOs) now no longer wants to give him a rematch.
Bradley feels like the fight wasn’t close enough for him to want to waste time with a rematch. Bradley saw it as an easy win with him winning eight rounds to four over the struggling Vargas.
It looks like Vargas is out of luck as far as a rematch goes. The only way Vargas is going to get a rematch now is if the World Boxing Organization orders Bradley to give him a rematch. I’m not sure that they’re going to do that given how one-sided the fight was. There was only 10 seconds left in the fight, and even if Vargas had knocked him down in the last 10 seconds, Bradley likely would have gotten up and the time would have ran out.
“No,” Bradley said to a rematch with Vargas. “That was one shot he landed over the top, and you think he could beat me clearly? I beat that kind eight rounds to four, hands down. I was winning. I was mowing him down, using my jab, stalking and moving. Honestly, I’m not in the rematch business. If Jessie is going to cry wolf because he didn’t feel like he got a fair shake. He had a fair shot in 12 rounds. What for? I look back and what for? Sour grapes, man,” Bradley said.
I think Bradley shouldn’t get stuck fighting Vargas again. He’s got a lot of different options available to him. This week, the WBO will make a decision whether to make Bradley the full WBO 147lb champion or not. The WBO would then strip Floyd Mayweather Jr. of his title due to him not giving them the $200,000 grand that they’re asking for in terms of the sanctioning fee. They also want Mayweather to give up his WBA and WBC junior middleweight titles because they don’t believe in their champions having multiple titles in different weight classes.
Vargas should focus on defending his WBA 140lb title and not venture into the welterweight division again. It’s clear that he doesn’t have the punching power or talent to fight in this division. If a fighter like Bradley could dominate him, then that tells you how limited Vargas is as a fighter.
There are arguably much better fighters at 147 than Bradley right now. If you put Bradley in with the following welterweights, he’s going to get beaten: Kell Brook, Shawn Porter, Marcos Maidana, Mayweather and Keith Thurman. Pacquiao already proved that he’s better than Bradley, so we’re not even going to bother mentioning his name.
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