By Chris Williams: As it turns out, WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (28-0, 12 KO’s) made the right move to turn down the $1 million + offer to fight former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan last year, because Bradley is set to make about $5 million smackers against WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao on June 9th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

LA Times writer Lance Pugmire said “Promoter Bob Arum said there was no reason to doubt that Bradley will have around the same $5 million guarantee that Pacquiao’s most recent two opponents had.”

Wow! So Bradley is going to make five times the amount he would have received had he fought Khan. Does anyone now doubt that Bradley made the right move in skipping the fight against the hit and run Khan? It was a smart move by Bradley.

Bradley’s biggest paydays of his career came against Devon Alexander and 40-year-old Joel Casamayor in his last two fights, both of which netted Bradley a little over $1 million apiece. It’s obviously but not so good in comparison to the cash he’s going to get for the Pacquiao fight.

Bradley made his own opportunities when he left his former promoter Gary Shaw and signed with Top Rank Promotions. This then made it easy for Top Rank president Bob Arum to set up one of his usual in house fights, because Arum has almost completely run out of Top rank fighters to put in with Pacquiao. It’s down to Brandon Rios, Mike Jones [who may be too big], Miguel Cotto and Bradley. I suspect Rios, Jones and Cotto will all get a shot against Pacquiao before he retires but for now it’s going to be Bradley that gets the $5 million payday.

Arum was kind of stuck with Bradley, however, because the opponent that he wanted, Cotto, refused to weaken himself by going down to 147lbs to fight Pacquiao. With Cotto refusing to melt down, Pacquiao opted not to meet him at a catchweight of a 150. This left Arum with few choices. Lamont Peterson was mentioned as a possible Pacquiao opponent, but he’s not a Top Rank guy and doesn’t have much of a following. It was probably him not being a Top Rank guy that get him dismissed in the Pacquiao lottery.