By Jim Dower: Undefeated World Boxing Organization light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (24-0, 13 KO’s) will be fighting WBO interim light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (27-0, 13 KO’s) on December 5th, at the Agua Caliente Casino, in Rancho Mirage, California.

Promoter Gary Shaw, the promoter for Bradley, won the purse bid yesterday with a bid of $575,000, beating out Top Rank’s bid of $402,000 for the fight.

Bradley, 26, recently fought Nate Campbell last month on August 1st, and the bout ended up being stopped after Campbell was cut above the left eye from a head clash. Bradley, however, was dominating the fight at the time of the stoppage and had won all three rounds.

Given the one-sided nature of the fight and the bad blood between him and Campbell, Bradley has opted not to fight a rematch with Campbell. Before that, Bradley defeated WBO light welterweight champion Kendall Holt by a 12 round decision in April.

Bradley was knocked down twice in the fight by Holt, once in the 1st and another time in the 12th, but outworked Holt in the other rounds. It was an exciting fight where Bradley basically seemed to want it more, forcing his will on the faster Holt.

The fight might have been even more exciting had Holt not disappeared for rounds at a time where he did little and let Bradley win the rounds by virtual default. Bradley then chose not to defend his WBC title against number #1 mandatory challenger Devon Alexander, and had is stripped from him in April by the WBC.

Bradley wrote a letter to the WBC on the same day that he was stripped telling them that he wasn’t going to defend the title and was vacating. This enabled Bradley to go after a bigger money fight against Campbell rather than take a smaller payday against Alexander.

It’s too bad that Bradley chose not to fight Alexander, because that would have likely been a much more appealing fight than to watch Bradley fight the 37-year-old Campbell, who looked slow and old against Bradley, missing many of his shots in the fight.

Peterson, 25, the older brother of lightweight Anthony Peterson, captured the interim WBO light welterweight title with a 7th round stoppage victory over Willy Blain on April 25th. It wasn’t an impressive performance by Peterson, as he was hit often by Blain in their fight.

The fight was eventually stopped in the 7th after Blain suffered a hand injury. Peterson isn’t much of a puncher and is more of a pure boxer. He has decent speed, but isn’t as fast as or as powerful Bradley. For this reason, Peterson will likely have problems with the power and speed of Bradley and will likely end up losing by a lopsided decision.

Peterson had great technical skills and likes to fight on the inside where he is an excellent body puncher. However, his lack of power and speed will likely be a problem for him against Bradley, and I can see this quickly turning into a one-sided fight before long.

Vic Darchinyan (32-2-1, 26 KO’s) will be fighting on the undercard, possibly against Tomas Rojas. Darchinyan, 33, was defeated by IBF bantamweight champion Joseph Agbeko in a close 12 round-decision on July 11th.

Darchinyan fought too conservatively in the early parts of the fight and by the time that he made his surge in the later rounds, he was too far behind to make up ground.