By William Mackay: Photo by David Martin Warr – The two best light welterweights in the division go at on Saturday when WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (26-0, 11 KO’s) faces unbeaten WBC light welterweight champion Devon Alexander (21-0, 13 KO’s) in a 12 round bout at the Silverdome, in Pontiac, Michigan. Bradley, 27, sees the winner of this fight creating a super star in the sport, saying “The winner of this fight will be a superstar, a new face in boxing.” I wouldn’t go that far. I think the winner of the Bradley-Alexander fight will be a lot popular than they were before, but I wouldn’t call the fighter a superstar.

To be a superstar, you have put in more time over at least a decade where you prove yourself over and over again like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao have done. Neither of those fighters were considered superstars until they had been fighting at the top for at least 10 years. Bradley and Alexander are newcomers and it’s going to take awhile for boxing fans to see one of them as the next super star.

The same goes for Amir Khan. He’s already calling out Mayweather, even though he just captured the WBA light welterweight title in late 2009 against paper champion Andriy Kotelnik and has only defended it a handful of times against weak punchers Paulie Malignaggi and Dimitri Salita. Marcos Maidana was Khan’s first real title defense, and he almost that fight. Bradley and Alexander need to put their time and keep winning, clean out the division and try to lure Mayweather or Pacquiao to fight them. There’s talk of Pacquiao facing the winner of the Alexander-Bradley fight. If that happens, it’s going to be a huge shot in the arm for one of these fighters even if they get beaten by Pacquiao.