Jessie Vargas: I’m getting this win over Tim Bradley no matter what

By Boxing News - 06/16/2015 - Comments

bradley567By Chris Williams: After struggling and looking poor in his last three fights against Khabib Allakhverdiev, Anton Novikov and Antonio DeMarco, Jessie Vargas (26-0, 9 KOs) feels that he’s going to find success in his fight in 11 days from now against former two division world champion Tim Bradley (31-1-1, 12 KOs) at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

Their promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank has been saying that the WBO welterweight title will be on the line for this fight, but I don’t think that’s the case. The WBO 147 pound title belongs to Floyd Mayweather Jr. after he dominated Manny Pacquiao to get the victory on May 2nd of last month. The Bradley-Vargas fight is pretty much just a fight between contenders.

I don’t think Vargas is going to win this fight. Bradley is out of his league, and I think it’s going to be readily apparent when the bell sounds for the 1st round of action. Bradley is a level above the guys that Vargas has been struggling to beat in Novikov, Allakhverdiev and DeMarco. None of those guys would be competitive with Bradley, but they almost beat Vargas. I thought Novikov did beat Vargas, but was arguably robbed of the decision. It’s obviously not easy to beat the Top Rank promoted Vargas when it comes to trying to beat by decision. I don’t think Bradley will have that problem if it goes to the cards.

“We are taking this win no matter what. I want to make Erik [Morales] look good,” Vargas said via Fighthype.com. “The whole team wants to look good. The whole team is based off of my victory…You are going to see a stronger and faster version of Jessie Vargas than you have ever seen.”

Vargas isn’t going to get the “win no matter what.” That line would have worked for Vargas if he was fighting Novikov again, but it’s not going to work with Bradley.

I think Vargas doesn’t belong at welterweight, and neither does Bradley. Vargas’ lack of punching power is a real handicap for him. He’s forced to box 12 rounds each time he fights, and that makes a lot harder for him to get wins because he doesn’t have enough power in his shots to win round conclusively. Vargas also doesn’t have fast hands. He’s not slow, but he’s definitely not fast of hands. What Vargas does a lot of is clinching, moving and jabbing. It’s not exciting to watch Vargas fight. He tends to try and box his way to decisions. That’s going to be a problem for him against Bradley because he does the same thing, but without all the holding that you see with Vargas. Bradley has the faster hands, the better power, and the superior footwork. His boxing IQ is superior, and I think he’s going to have an easy time getting a win over Vargas.

I don’t know where Bradley is going with his career at this point. He’s starting to look kind of shot. In his last fight, he struggled to get a draw against Diego Chaves, and he took a lot of punishment. Bradley says he wants to fight guys like Mayweather and Miguel Cotto, but that’s not going to happen. Those fighters aren’t going to waste their time on him. Bradley probably won’t even get another fight against Pacquiao because the Filipino fighter appears to be at the end of his career. That means that Bradley’s chances of anymore big money fights are likely finished.



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