By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (31-0, 12 KO’s) has re-signed with Top Rank for another 2 years in order to get a fight with Manny Pacquiao on April 12th in Las Vegas, Nevada. Unfortunately, by the time Bradley’s contract ends in 2017, then Floyd Mayweather Jr. will likely be out of the sport because he’s talking about retiring in late 2015.
Bradley says he didn’t feel like he had didn’t have a guarantee that he would get the fight with Mayweather even if he left Top Rank. However, Bradley still believes that Mayweather won’t mind facing him even if he’s still with Bob Arum and Top Rank if he wants to fight him badly enough.
“If Mayweather wants to fight me, Mayweather will fight me,” Bradley said to Fighthype. “I really don’t have to chase anyone…There’s no guarantees that if I’m not with Top Rank, I will get a fight with Floyd Mayweather. There’s no guarantee.”
Bradley’s kidding himself if he thinks Mayweather will decide that he wants to fight him badly enough to do business with Top Rank. Bradley needs to see things from a realistic view. If Mayweather isn’t interested enough in dealing with Top Rank to fight Manny Pacquiao in a much, much bigger fight than a Bradley fight, then why would Mayweather waste his time dealing with Top Rank to fight an unpopular welterweight like Bradley? He probably isn’t even as popular as Victor Ortiz, and he’s not really popular.
Mayweather arguably has a lot of guys outside of Top Rank he can fight that would bring in many more fans than a Bradley fight. It’s not worth it for Mayweather to fight Bradley, even if he wasn’t with Top Rank. It would be like fighting Amir Khan. Mayweather would be the one bringing in all the fans, and Bradley would just be the B side with an inflated resume with two controversial wins over Pacquiao and Ruslan Provodnikov. The only quality win on Bradley’s resume that isn’t controversial is his victory over Juan Manuel Marquez, but that was against a 40-year-old Marquez.
Bradley made the right move by staying with Top Rank, because he can get more fights against Pacquiao if he stays with them. With Top Rank only having a small handful of fighters in their stable in the 140-147 divisions, chances are Bradley could wind up fighting Pacquiao as many as 5-6 times if their fights continue to be close. Arum doesn’t mind matching the same guys against each other over and over, and Bradley will make a lot of money if he’s being put in with Pacquiao repeatedly. I’m not sure if it’s good for Pacquiao’s career to be stuck fighting the same guy over and over, but if he keeps saying yes to the rematches then that’s probably what will happen.
A Mayweather fight wouldn’t be good for Bradley. Mayweather is so much better than Bradley in every facet of the game. It would end badly for Bradley with him getting clowned along the same level of Robert Guerrero. I don’t think Bradley would do even as well as Saul “Canelo” ALvarez would, because he doesn’t have the same power and size as him. It would be really one-sided with Mayweather beating Bradley badly. Afterwards, Bradley’s stock would be at an all-time low and he’d have to try and rebuild his career in his 30s. That wouldn’t be easy to do with the guys that would be offered to him by Golden Boy Promotions, such as Keith Thurman. There are too many good fighters in the Golden Boy stable, and it’s possible Bradley’s career would be pretty much over in 2 to 3 fights with him losing to Mayweather, Keith Thurman and then Lucas Matthysse. I think all of those guys would beat Bradley.
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