By John F. McKenna (McJack): It is clear that Top Rank CEO Bob Arum has his work cut out for him in promoting the championship match between undefeated WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (28-0-1 NC, 12 KO’s) and Filipino icon WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 KO’s).

Bradley was not Pacquiao’s first choice as an opponent for his next fight. Manny’s first choice of course would have been undefeated superstar WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s). Neither was Bradley the 2nd choice for Manny. “Pacman’s” 2nd choice clearly would have been WBA light middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KO’s). Cotto is very popular in the Puerto Rican community and has a huge fan base there.

Bradley, although a good fighter, is not known to have huge drawing power. It addition, Bradley is a light welterweight and will be moving up to the welterweight ranks for the match with Pacquiao. Even though “Desert Storm” is already physically close to the size of Manny, the perception of many boxing fans is that he is a smaller fighter than Pacquao.

The Top Rank CEO is good at what he does and will have to pull a rabbit or two out of the hat to promote Bradley as a viable opponent for “Pacman”. Bradley is not always perceived by boxing fans as being an entertaining fighter. His fight against Devon Alexander a year ago was heavily promoted by HBO and wound up being a major disappointment.

So how does “Uncle” Bob go about promoting Bradley? In May 2010 both Pacquiao and trainer Freddie Roach had to be persuaded by Arum to accept the badly faded 39 year old Shane Mosley as an opponent. Arum pulled out all the stops and by fight night he had convinced boxing fans that Mosley really had a shot at defeating Pacquiao. The fight wound up doing 1.3 million Pay Per View (PPV) buys.

Arum will no doubt emphasize that at 28 years old, Bradley is undefeated and in his prime. Arum will also elaborate on how one sided Timothy’s victory over Lamont Peterson was, the same Peterson who relieved Amir Khan of his WBA/IBF title belts in December.

In essence what Arum will be doing is building up the chances of Bradley against his #1 cash cow, Manny Pacquiao. Only time will tell if Arum is as successful as he was in promoting Mosley in May 2010.