Bradley not interested in Peterson fight, willing to wait until a big fight opens up

By Boxing News - 10/11/2012 - Comments

Image: Bradley not interested in Peterson fight, willing to wait until a big fight opens upBy Chris Williams: Contrary to some of odd rumors that have been floating around that Tim Bradley is still nursing an injured foot and fight on December 15th, Bradley cleared that up today in an interview with mydesert.com, saying his foot is fine but his desire to fight Lamont Peterson for a second isn’t fine. Bradley isn’t interested in fighting Peterson again, because he already easily beat him by a lopsided 12 round decision in 2009 and he doesn’t want to take his career in reverse mode.

Bradley’s promoter Bob Arum was hoping to put Bradley on the December 15th card at the Marlins Park, in Miami, Florida, USA. The choices for that fight were Robert Guerrero, Peterson and Andre Berto. Bradley was interested in the Berto and Guerrero fights.

However, Arum didn’t make a deal with Guerrero, who fights for Golden Boy Promotions, and that’s not surprising given that Bradley is a Top Rank fighter and they rarely fight against Golden Boy fighters. Arum also couldn’t work a deal with Berto, although Bradley doesn’t know why. This left only Peterson, who Bradley isn’t at all interested in fighting again.

Bradley said to Mydesert.com “It’s not necessary to have a rematch with Peterson. I think he’s the only guy available to fight right now, so I’m willing to wait…I want to get back in the ring as soon as possible, but it has to make sense…I’m willing to wait on something.”

I approve of Bradley being willing to turn down an easy payday because a lot of fighters would have used the opportunity to milk their titles against a guy that they know they can easily beat. Bradley’s above that, and he’s not going to waste time on fighting someone he won every round against three years ago in a shutout 12 round decision. But with that said, Bradley needs to be careful that he doesn’t fall into the same kind of trap that a lot of fighters have after they get a big payday bout. The want to wait around until another big money fight comes and they end up waiting so long that fans forget about them, and they lose their skills. This kind of thing has happened many times in the past, and those fighters rarely get the fight they were hoping to get and end up mess their careers up by missing out on tons paydays. What Bradley can’t afford is to be forgotten by boxing fans. He also can’t afford to let ring rust develop by him sitting idle waiting for a big money fight to fall into his lap.

It’s unclear what big opponent Bradley is hoping will suddenly appear, but my guess is Manny Pacquiao, Ricky Hatton, Miguel Cotto, Amir Khan or Floyd Mayweather Jr. Bradley doesn’t want to book himself for a fight against Peterson and then possibly lose out on something much bigger.

Bradley will be back in action in either January or February of next year. Hopefully, he can get the big fight that he’s craving because it would be a huge letdown if he ends up fighting someone along the same lines as Peterson after all this waiting.



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