By Dan Ambrose: WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs) was tooting his own horn last night after his 9th round knockout win over challenger Brandon Rios (33-3-1, 24 KOs) in their fight on HBO Championship Boxing in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Bradley says that he only worked with trainer Teddy Atlas for seven weeks to prepare for the Rios fight. Bradley feels that after a year of working with Atlas, he’ll be even better. Just how much better he thinks he’ll be is the big question. There is such a thing called diminishing returns, and I think we’ll see that with Bradley’s so-called improvement with Atlas.
Personally, I didn’t see any improvement at all in Bradley’s game. I think he was better two years ago when he defeated Juan Manuel Marquez by a 12 round decision. To me, Bradley just looks two years older and two years slower now. It’s not as if Bradley is aging backwards like Benjamin Button, but with the way he talks, it sure sounds like he believes he is.
“It is a step in the right direction. I feel good about my performance,” said Bradley via the latimes.com. “I haven’t mastered these things. It’s only been seven weeks. I can only imagine a year. I want to learn as much as I can.”
I don’t think Bradley will be better a year from now than is right now. If anything, I think Bradley will be worse off than he is now, because he’ll be 33-years-old and will have more ring wear on him, especially if his promoter Bob Arum matches him up against Manny Pacquiao or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez next.
As far as the improvement that Bradley is seeing from his time with Atlas, I don’t see anything that Atlas has done that Bradley’s previous trainer Joel Diaz couldn’t come up with. Diaz could have told Bradley to stay on the outside, jab, throw quick shots, and the tie Rios up. That’s all Bradley did last night. It wasn’t rocket science.
“I did some things tonight that were better than what I did before,” Bradley said. “I did this little move where you throw this body shot and move, and it worked tonight.”
Bradley’s body shots only worked last night because of how flabby, tired, and out of shape he was in. Bradley was hurting Rios with the head shots he was landing in the fight, and he wasn’t doing anything complicated.
I think we’re going to find out that Bradley is the same old fighter he always was when he eventually faces a good welterweight in the division and gets beaten again.
I see Bradley as the 9th best welterweight in the 147lb division. Bradley can talk all he wants about Atlas improving his game, but I still see Bradley losing to the best welterweights in the division when/if he faces them.
I see the following welterweights better than Bradley:
Manny Pacquiao
Errol Spence
Keith Thurman
Shawn Porter
Danny Garcia
Amir Khan
Kell Brook
Marcos Maidana
Like I said in a previous article, I think Diego Chaves and Bradley are both about the same in terms of talent.
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