Tim Bradley’s March 16th fight to be under VADA testing

By Boxing News - 01/31/2013 - Comments

bradley232By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley’s next fight on March 16th will be done with testing by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association [VADA], according to Steve Kim. Bradley still doesn’t have an opponent after he and super featherweight Yuriorkis Gamboa couldn’t agree on a catchweight for the fight.

At this point it’s not looking good for the 29-year-old Bradley if he doesn’t still fight on that date. It’s hard to imagine his promoter Bob Arum getting anyone remotely good, but that’s a good thing because Bradley will stay unbeaten for a little while longer. It’s no secret that Bradley wants a rematch with Manny Pacquiao, and by staying unbeaten he’ll be improving his chances of a second fight with Manny taking place.

As far as the VADA testing goes, I’m wondering if this was driven by Bradley or Arum. There’s talk of random blood testing for the 5th fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez, and if Arum can have his other fighters doing this before the Pacquiao-Marquez 5th fight, Marquez might not take it so hard that he’s being asked for testing just after his win over the Filipino.

You can see how it might make Marquez a little upset because the timing of the testing – right after his 6th round knockout win – looks bad, as if there’s distrust. There wasn’t any testing done when Pacquiao winning questionable decisions over Marquez in their 2nd and 3rd fights, and there wasn’t any testing when Pacquiao was given a controversial draw with Marquez in their first fight.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the blood testing will become standard to fight one of Arum’s fighters. I hope that’s not the case unless the State Commission makes this the norm because it will seem strange that fighters will have to jump through extra hoops to fight Top Rank fighters.



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