Bradley: Marquez doesn’t know what he’s in for

By Boxing News - 10/07/2013 - Comments

bradley757By Allan Fox: WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (30-0, 12 KO’s) expects to punish Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez (55-6-1, 40 KO’s) this Saturday in their pay-per-view fight on HBO from the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Although the 30-year-old Bradley isn’t known for being much of a power puncher, he expects his speed enable him to catch the 40-year-old Marquez with a shot that he doesn’t see coming that will result in Marquez getting knocked out if he tries to trade shots with him.

Bradley said to HBO “He has no idea what he’s up against. October 12th is my time to shine. Come get by 147 belt. That’s the belt you want. They think they have the code to beat me. When they come at me, I turn into a freaken superb boxer. They’re going to come and try and pressure me. That’s going to be his biggest mistake. He’s going to get caught, man. I’m going to catch him. It only takes one punch; a punch he does not see to end the fight.”

It sounds like Bradley imagines himself to be a knockout puncher all of a sudden. Unfortunately, Bradley has only scored one knockout in the last five years and that doesn’t suggest that he’s got knockout power.

It could be a mistake on Bradley’s part if he chooses to try and hit Marquez with a big shot because it’ll leave him open for a big counter shot from Marquez. He’s quite capable of hurting Bradley just like Ruslan Provodnikov did last March when he had Bradley on the verge of being stopped in the 12th rounds.

Bradley suffered a concussion in that fight by making the mistake of trying to punch with the harder hitting Russian fighter.

Bradley said that he chose to slug with Provodnikov to prove a point to the fans that doubted him after his controversial 12 round decision win over Manny Pacquiao from last year. But if anything the Provodnikov fight showed even more clearly that Bradley doesn’t have the power to stand in there with sluggers like Pacquiao, Provodnikov and even a powerful counter puncher like Marquez.

If Bradley gets a little too cocky and tries to go toe-to-toe with Marquez this Saturday, we could see Bradley get hurt again. Provodnikov was able to hurt him seemingly each time he landed a hard punch.

It’s a credit to Bradley that he was able to make it through the 12 rounds without getting knocked out because he was ready to go in the 1st round and 12th in that fight.

Bradley will likely choose to use movement and speed to control the fight against Marquez. This is how he was able to defeat Pacquiao by a questionable decision last year by hitting and keeping out of range. Marquez is expecting Bradley to use this tactic, and he’s going to go after him to cut off the ring.

Marquez can’t let Bradley pick and choose when to exchange because that’ll mean that he’ll get his shots in without getting hit often in return. Marquez has to stay close to Bradley at all times to force him into the same kind of brawl that he was in the Provodnikov fight.



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