By Jason Kim: WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (27-0, 11 KO’s) only has until December to accept a fight against IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (26-1, 18 KO’s) or else Khan will move onto a fight against either Erik Morales or the winner of the Marcos Maidana vs. Roberto Guerrero fight in August for the regular World Boxing Association light welterweight title.

Khan’s promoter Richard Schaefer sees Bradley waiting around until early 2012 to fight Manny Pacquiao for a big $5 million payday. Bradley, who is involved with a lawsuit with his promoter right now, could fight on the undercard of Pacquiao’s next bout against Juan Manuel Marquez on November 12th in order to get boxing fans familiar with Bradley. Khan thinks that Bradley is afraid to fight him. However, the real truth is Bradley will make much less to face Khan than he would to fight Pacquiao.

It’s a lot smarter for Bradley to take the big money against the much more popular Pacquiao than to take 1/5th of that to face Khan, a lesser star. Khan is making it out as Bradley being afraid of him, but Bradley seems to have his priorities in order sees the bigger opportunity with Pacquiao. If things were switched around, Khan would likely do the same thing if he had a big money bout against Pacquiao on the horizon. You can kind of see that with Khan’s choices opposition. He’s not exactly running after Breidis Prescott right now in working his way to a cash out fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Schaefer said this to the Los Angeles Times about Bradley: “He overplayed his cards. If he’s not available in December, we’re moving on. No one can ever say Amir Khan did not give Bradley a chance.”

It’s business. Bradley is not going to take small money over big money. Besides that, he’s already guaranteed $1.2 million for his next fight by HBO no matter who he faces. He doesn’t need Khan to get that kind of money in a tune-up for Pacquiao. Schaefer isn’t going to be able to shame Bradley into making a foolish decision take a lesser paying fight. He’s too smart for that.