By Jason Kim: According to the latest boxing news gossip, lightweight knockout artist Edwin Valero (27-0, 27 KO’s) could be facing WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley on June 5th on Showtime. This is a fight, if it happens at all, which will be taking place at light welterweight rather than lightweight. Valero, 28, wants to move up in weight to get his feet wet at light welterweight to test his abilities at the higher weight class.

It’s really not much of a move up in weight, only five pounds higher than the 135 pound lightweight division. The choice of Bradley to fight is rather a risky one for Valero, because Bradley is quite good, and maybe the best fighter in the entire light welterweight division. Valero’s promoter, Bob Arum of Top Rank, surprisingly is willing to match Valero up with the talented Bradley.

Arum must really like Valero’s chances in this fight, because he usually likes to take the go slow approach with his best fighters in his stable. You can maybe see why Arum is willing to risk putting Valero in with a guy like Bradley. Valero has the better power and throws way more punches than Bradley typically does. If Valero can stay on top of Bradley all night long like he does with most of his opponents, there’s a good chance that Valero may be able to drop Bradley once or twice and possibly get a stoppage.

Bradley’s chin isn’t the best. He was knocked down twice in his fight against Kendall Holt last year. Bradley also is susceptible to being out-pointed, because he sometimes is too cautious and fails to throw enough punches. If it comes down to Valero landing more shots than Bradley, the chances are Valero will win the decision because of his better power and more exciting style.

Bradley will be forced to go to war with Valero if he wants to beat him. Bradley doesn’t fight on the outside because of his lack of height, so he’ll be there for Valero for to hit for most of the fight unless Bradley adopts an in and out style of fighting like Manny Pacquiao. I doubt that will happen. Bradley seems to fight with a lot of ego, and I can easily envision him thinking that he can get the better of the hard hitting Valero with his own power shots.

There is also a real danger that Valero could lose. He hasn’t faced anyone near the same class as Bradley during his career. You could easily say that Valero’s recent opponent, 24-year-old Antonio DeMarco, was Valero’s best opponent during his eight year career. DeMarco is a good fighter, to be sure, but there’s a world’s difference between him and the talented Bradley in my view.

Valero will have to put it in overdrive if he wants to beat Bradley, because he’s going to be going up against a fighter with extraordinary boxing skills. Valero has good hand speed, and showed that he was faster than people thought he was in beating DeMarco by a stoppage after the 9th round last Saturday night, but Bradley is a lot faster than Valero, and he could give him a lot of problems by being able to get his shots in first all night long.