Teddy Atlas wants Bradley vs. Pacquiao 3

By Boxing News - 11/19/2015 - Comments

atlasBy Tim Fletcher: WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley’s new trainer Teddy Atlas says he likes the idea of a third fight between Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs) and former eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao. Atlas feels that Bradley, 32, should be at the top of the list for Pacquiao for his final fight of his career on April 9th, due to Bradley’s impressive stoppage win over Brandon Rios this month.

“I think a rubber match would be intriguing,” Atlas said to Ringtv.com. “At the end of the day, I think another Bradley fight is at the top of the list for Manny’s last fight,” Atlas said.

If Pacquiao chooses Bradley for his final fight, then he’ll need to be OK with getting few PPV buys. You can only fight the same guy a certain amount of time. There probably wouldn’t be a whole lot of interest from the boxing community for a third fight between Pacquiao and Bradley because the second fight between them last year wasn’t competitive. Also, many fans felt that that Pacquiao was robbed in his second fight with Pacquiao in 2012.

Bradley was given a narrow 12 round decision, but the scoring was ridiculous in that fight. Bradley hasn’t done much to redeem himself since his loss to Pacquiao last year. Bradley has since beaten lower level fighters in Brandon Rios and Jessie Vargas from his 83-year-old promoter Bob Arum’s Top Rank stable.

Bradley hasn’t faced any tough opponents like Amir Khan, Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Errol Spence. Last year, Bradley struggled to a 12 round draw against Diego Chaves.

Bradley used a lot of movement in that fight to avoid Chaves’ big shots, but Bradley ran out of gas in the 2nd half of that contest. That would have happened to Bradley if he’d been trained by Atlas. That was a problem related to Bradley not be able to move for 12 rounds, and not being able to handle the pressure that was put on him by the hard hitting Chaves.



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