By Jason Kim: World Boxing Organization light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (25-0, 11 KO’s) is taking on his Plan B opponent welterweight Luis Carlos Abregu (29-0, 23 KO’s) in a 12 round non-title bout on July 17th at the Agua Caliente Casino, in Rancho Mirage, California. This was supposed to be a fight between the 26-year-old Bradley and the knockout artist WBA junior welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (28-1, 27 KO’s).
However, Maidana injured his back and it wasn’t healing as quickly as he had hoped and he decided to cancel the Bradley bout rather than go into the fight with a painful injury that prevented him from fighting at 100%. After learning the bad news about the fight cancellation, Bradley decided to take on the 27-year-old Argentinean Abregu in order for Bradley to get his feet wet in the welterweight division in hopes of someday possibly getting a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Manny Pacquiao.
Abregu is currently ranked #5 WBC, #8 IBF and #11 WBO and has good power in both hands. What Abregu doesn’t have a lot of is hand speed and a strong chin. He’s been hurt in fights against Richard Gutierrez, Irving Garcia and David Estrada in the past two years and is extremely fortunate that he wasn’t beaten in all three fights.
However, Bradley may be making a big mistake in fighting a powerful guy like Abregu. Bradley, only 5’6” and slender, will be giving up four inches in height to the 5’10” Abregu and three inches in reach. Abregu hits hard and is a strong welterweight. He’s been hurt in the past in several of his more important fights, but it’s unclear whether the much smaller Bradley will have the power needed to give Abregu many problems.
This is a fight where if Bradley is unable to stop Abregu, he could end up getting badly punished by the Argentinean. We already saw Bradley get hurt in his fight with Kendall Holt last year, and while Holt can punch a little, he’s not the puncher that Abregu is.
Bradley is going to be facing a much different fighter in Abregu compared the smaller, weaker guys he’s been fighting up until now. Bradley has much better hand speed than Abregu, there’s no question about that. However, if Abregu can walk through Bradley’s shots to land his own big punches, Bradley could be in big trouble against him. Bradley could learn to regret that he took the fight with Abregu.
Bradley is hoping to get a shot at WBA junior welterweight champion Amir Khan in the near future. Khan says he wants to fight the best fighters in the junior welterweight division and unify all the titles. However, Khan hasn’t been quick to put in place what he’s been talking about, as he’s been facing weak punchers since he captured the WBA title last year. Bradley has a pretty good idea that he can not only beat Khan but dominate him when and if they do eventually fight.
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