By Allan Fox: Tim Bradley says he’s totally not interested in fighting former 4 division world champion Adrien ‘The Problem’ Broner after the 28-year-old fighter called him out this week on social media. Bradley (33-2-1, 13 KOs), who is retired now after a 12-year pro career, says the fight with Broner can never happen, because they’re on different sides of the fence.
Bradley doesn’t say what he means by that comment, but it appears that he means that his promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank won’t work with Broner. Arum said he won’t work with the 28-year-old, especially with his language and the way he’s acted.
“No chance of that,” Bradley said to Fighthype about a fight between him and Broner. ”AB is talking. I’m on one side. He’s on the other. The fight can never happen. I think everybody is trying to talk. I’m not interested. Thank you, I’m not interested,” Bradley said about Broner’s fight offer.
Bradley-Broner would have been a good fight if it had happened when Bradley was still fighting, and in his prime, but not now. Bradley has been retired for over 2 years since losing his last fight to Manny Pacquiao in April 2016. Bradley works for Top Rank Boxing as a commentator for their fights on ESPN, and he seems to be happy in that job.
Broner should have made the move to go after Bradley back when he was still fighting, because it doesn’t make much sense for him to wait two years after he retired to start calling him out. It reeks of desperation on Broner’s part to be calling out Bradley right now. It smells of a fighter whose career is tanking, and he’s looking to be helped out by him.
Broner should be asking to fight the winner of the July 15 fight between WBA ‘regular’ welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse and Manny Pacquiao. Those two are at least active fighters, and there’s a chance that one of them wouldn’t mind fighting Broner. Pacquiao calls his owns shots, so he’s not going to get blocked by Arum if he decides that he wants to fight Broner.
Pacquiao probably wouldn’t want to fight Broner right now, because his career is looking so bad right now. Broner has lost to Shawn Porter, Marcos Maidana and Mikey Garcia in the past five years. He also has two fights that could have been losses as well against Adrian Granados and Jessie Vargas. Pacquiao wants to fight Vasyl Lomachenko, and that’s a match that Arum wants to make.
“Timothy Bradley bring yo b–tch ass back and get this ass whupping, p***y, meet me at 144,”Broner said on his Instagram this week.
Broner (33-3-1, 24 KOs) came up empty in his last fight against former 2 division world champion Jessie Vargas (28-2-1, 10 KOs) in fighting to a 12 round draw against him last month on April 21 on Showtime Boxing from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Broner started too slowly in the first five rounds, and then after fighting well in the middle portion of the fight, he outworked in the championship rounds by Vargas. It was a real stretch to call the fight a draw. It looked like a win for Vargas. Broner lost his fight before that against lightweight Mikey Garcia, who moved up one weight class to fight AB at 140 last year on July 29. Mikey beat Broner by a comfortable 12 round unanimous decision in Brooklyn, New York.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with Adrien Broner,” Arum said to RingTV.com. “Timothy Bradley has a multi-year deal with ESPN where he’s a commentator. You don’t see people in football calling out Troy Aikman to come back and play quarterback, or be calling out Jason Witten to come back to being a tight end. So the idea of calling out Timothy Bradley,” Arum said in trying to understand what’s going through Broner’s mind.
It’s easy to figure out Broner. He’s at light welterweight now, because he doesn’t have the size, speed or power to compete at a high level at 147. The problem that Broner has at light welterweight is there are not names for him to fight. All the popular fighters are fighting at 147 now with Errol Spence, Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter and Terence Crawford, The only guys left at 140 are guys like Jose Ramirez, Regis Prograis, Kiryl Relikh, Sergey Lipinets, Maurice Hooker, Terry Flanagan and Ivan Baranchyk.
Those are not super popular fighters, and they don’t have recognizable names like Tim Bradley. But what’s more problematic for Broner is that many of them would likely beat him, so he gains nothing from fighting them another loss and another nail on the coffin of his once promising career. Broner won’t get much money fighting Ramirez, Prograis, Relikh and Lipinets. The chances of Broner losing to them would be high. Ramirez is with Top Rank, so probably means Broner will never get a chance to fight him.
”Why doesn’t he call out [Sugar Ray] Leonard or [Marvin] Hagler,” Arum asked. ”Forget about [Broner’s] performance or non-performance [in his last fight against Jessie Vargas]. I’m not willing to put him on a program of mine because of his language and his demeanor in the promotion. I don’t want any part of him,” Arum said.
Broner should focus on going after a world title at 140, because that’s what he needs to do to help keep his career going. What Broner is doing instead of trying to dig up the best paying fights he can get, and it’s not been working well for him in facing Vargas and Mikey Garcia. If Broner goes after the WBO belt, he’ll have a chance of winning the strap, because he would only have to worry about facing the winner of the Terry Flanagan vs. Maurice Hooker fight.
Broner might be able to beat one of those two. Broner would have the chance of winning the IBF belt. It’s vacant right now Mikey vacated it.
Well, Broner would definitely spice up a fight between him and Bradley at the press conferences. Broner was tearing into his own promoter Leonard Ellerbe during his final press conference for his fight with Vargas last April.
