Jessie Vargas: I won’t stop throwing punches against Bradley

By Boxing News - 06/25/2015 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: If former two division world champion Tim Bradley (31-1-1, 12 KOs) was hoping to get a war out of WBA 140lb champion Jessie Vargas (26-0, 9 KOs) on Saturday night, then he got some bad news today in their final press conference when Vargas said that he’s going to be fighting Bradley in his own style when they go at it at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. The fight will be televised on HBO Championship Boxing.

“Erik knows what’s best. I want to fight as he did, but in my style as well,” Vargas said as quoted by Fight News. “I can assure you from this side that we won’t stop throwing punches.”

Vargas rarely slugs with his opponents, and it’s simply not realistic to assume that he’s going to change his fighting style to fight in a way that’s not suited towards his fighting style. However, it would be in his best interest to try and test Bradley by getting him into some exchanges because Bradley doesn’t pack a punch, and he’s looked poor in his last two fights against Diego Chaves and Manny Pacquiao.

Chaves wore Bradley down with his pressure in his last fight and had him on the run in the last five rounds. Bradley complained bitterly about him being ripped off by the judges, but he only has himself to blame for the 12 round draw he got in that fight because he was the one that ran out of gas in the last five rounds, not Chaves.

The judges did their job in giving Chaves at least a draw out of the fight. In fairness to Chaves, he was totally ripped off in his previous fight against Top Rank fighter Brandon Rios last year in August in a fight where the referee Vic Drakulitch took a point off from Chaves in the 3rd round for clinching.

Up to the point in the fight, Chaves had only clinched nine times in the entire fight, which is very low given that a lot of fighters are getting away with clinching over 10 times per round without losing a point.

“The Mexican boxing style is the best in the world,” Vargas’ trainer Erik Morales said. “It has emotion, it has power and ‘muchos blanquillos.’ Jessie Vargas is ready.”

Vargas has a very good chance of winning this fight if he uses his jab, moves and fires off combinations from time to time. He’s got the better power than Bradley, he’s bigger and he’s the younger guy. I think Bradley has a lot of mileage on him now, and he’s starting to show his age.

Bradley’s not the young fighter that beat Pacquiao in their first fight, and he’s not the same guy that beat Devon Alexander in 2011. Bradley has taken too many heavy shots in the last four years, and I think it’s caused him to lose a part of his game. If Vargas puts the heat on Bradley like we’ve seen from other fighters like Ruslan Provodnikov and Chaves, don’t be surprised if Bradley wilts.



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