By Jim Dower: It looks like boxing fans could soon be seeing a rematch between newly crowned WBO interim welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KOs) and Jessie Vargas (26-1, 9 KOs), even though the outcome will likely be just the same with Bradley winning another easy 12 round unanimous decision like we saw last night at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
After last night’s controversial ending in which the referee Pat Russell mistakenly stopped the fight 10 seconds early, Bradley has agreed to give Vargas a rematch. However, whether we see a rematch or not will depend largely on Bradley’s promoter Bob Arum and on the World Boxing Organization.
If they want to make the fight happen a second time, and possibly subject the fans to another one-sided fight, then we could soon be seeing Bradley and Vargas facing each other again. I don’t think it’s a worthy fight because Vargas was so badly dominated. It was similar situation with the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Sergio Martinez fight where Chavez Jr. was dominated badly for 11 rounds, but then he dropped Martinez in the 12th round. Martinez got up and still won the fight with ease, but there were fans who were pushing hard for the rematch.
“Why not? We can do a rematch,” Bradley said after the fight. “I don’t have a problem with that. Absolutely, I’ll give him a rematch no problem. I could have continued on. I’ve survived Provodnikov. I didn’t go anywhere, baby. I was still there. I was still alive. I didn’t go down. Look at how strong my legs are. I knew exactly what I was doing. I got lazy and he timed me with a perfectly thrown overhand right.”
There are so many better fighters out there for Bradley than a second fight with Vargas. It might be better for Bradley to move on. If he does choose to fight Vargas a second time, it will mean that he’ll have a relatively non-risky title defense. It would be a much different story for Bradley than if he were to defend his title against #4 WBO Brandon Rios or #9 WBO Shawn Porter.
Those would be very tough outs for Bradley. But putting Bradley back in with Vargas would be doing Bradley a big favor because it would give a chance to milk his title and give him an easy payday. Vargas isn’t a puncher despite landing that one big shot, and a rematch would very likely be the same as the first fight. Vargas doesn’t throw enough punches, and he’s too weak of a puncher for him to have a chance of ever beating Bradley.
“Those 10 seconds cost me the fight,” Vargas said. In a rematch, I’d start in where I left off. We’d throw more punches,” Vargas said.
Bradley would have survived the final 10 seconds. He was tying up Vargas, and the time was flying off quickly. Vargas wasn’t throwing enough punches and the ones he did throw lacked the power to do anything to Bradley.
The judges scored the fight 115-112, 116-112 and 117-111 for Bradley.
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