Tim Bradley wants Mayweather fight

By Boxing News - 06/19/2015 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: Tim Bradley (31-1-1, 12 KOs) pretty much closed the door to ever getting a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. when he re-upped with Top Rank last year for another two years. Bradley had to have known that by signing up to a 2-year extension with Bob Arum’s Top Rank, he was closing the door to a fight against Mayweather forever. But despite Bradley being out of the loop for a fight against Mayweather until 2017, Bradley says he still wants a fight against him.

It’s obviously a pipe dream on Bradley’s part because the likelihood of Mayweather choosing to do business with Top Rank for a fight against Bradley are about zero. Bradley isn’t a pay-per-view fighter, he doesn’t have a large fan base, and he hasn’t won a fight in two years since 2013.

Bradley’s last win was against 40-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez in October 2013. Since then, Bradley lost a one-sided 12 round decision to Manny Pacquiao in 2014, and fought to a 12 round draw against Diego Chaves in December of last year. In both fights, Bradley looked bad, underpowered, and simply not the fighter he once was.

“Floyd’s the best in the business. I would love the opportunity to face Floyd Mayweather, but you know Floyd does what he wants,” Bradley said to Fighthype. “He’s the cash cow of boxing. He’s the king right now and I respect that.”

Bradley needs to forget about fighting Mayweather, and just be happy that he was given two fights against Manny Pacquiao. Bradley got his two fights with Pacquiao, and it’s pretty much over for Bradley in terms of him ever getting any more big fights. He’s going to have to be content with fighting guys like Brandon Rios, Ruslan Provodnikov, Jessie Vargas and Terence Crawford. Those are the names that Bradley will likely finish out his career fighting.

Speaking of Jessie Vargas (26-0, 9 KOs), Bradley will be fighting him in a little over a week on June 27th at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. The fight will be televised on HBO Championship Boxing. Bradley needs a win here to stay relevant as one of the top names in the welterweight division. A loss to a weak puncher like Vargas would leave Bradley with some tough decisions to make about his career. He could either stay and welterweight and be happy with whatever fights Arum could dig up for him as opponent, or Bradley could move back down to 140 and hope that he could recapture the success that he had in that weight class from 2004 to 2011.

The money obviously wouldn’t be as good fighting at 140 compared to at 147, but if that’s the only place where Bradley can win fights at his age, then he needs to think about moving down in weight. Bradley’s lack of punching power will continue to plague him when he’s put in against good fighters with punching power. Bradley can beat the mediocre welterweights, or the old guys like Marquez, but he does not match-up well at all against guys like Keith Thurman, Kell Brook, Marcos Maidana, Shawn Porter, Diego Chaves or even someone like Adrien Broner. Brandon Rios will probably beat Bradley as well at this point.



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