https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNkqx1r8TeQ&feature=youtu.be

By Chris Williams: Tim Bradley (31-1-1, 12 KOs) is confident of victory this Saturday night against WBA light welterweight champion Jessie Vargas (26-0, 9 KOs) in their fight for the WBO interim welterweight [147] title at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

This is a Top Rank card, and the winner of the fight could inherit the WBO welterweight title from Floyd Mayweather Jr. if he doesn’t pay the huge $200K sanctioning fee that the World Boxing Association is asking for him in order to keep the title.

Bradley has some bad blood with Vargas’ trainer Erik Morales, and he’s interested in fighting the overweight 40+ year old trainer at the end of the year if he’s up for making a comeback to fight.

I’m not sure that Morales will take Bradley up on his offer, but the fact that Bradley is challenging him shows you all you need to know about him. Bradley is clearly desperate for a big fight, and he’s even called out WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. With all the guys that Golovkin has been trying to get a fight against, I think Bradley is the one fighter that Golovkin will turn up his nose and reject because it’s too much of an easy mismatch for Golovkin.

“Jessie Vargas, I’m going to whip his [backside] on Saturday, and if [Erik] Morales has a problem and he wants some, he can get some at the end of the year,” Bradley said to Top Rank. “I got two fights this year. This is my first fight. I’m going to beat this boy [Vargas], and then I’m going to come back and beat his behind if he comes out of retirement. He can fight at a catch-weight, 154 or whatever. If he wants to fight at 200, we can fight there, and I’m going to whip your [backside] next. This Saturday is going to be a great night for Team Bradley, and I’m going to walk out that ring with another belt strapped around me,” Bradley said.

Bradley is looking pretty shot lately, and I think you can make an argument that he’s over-the-hill at this point in his career. He’s not won a fight in two years since running his way to a very dull 12 round decision over Juan Manuel Marquez, and he’s gotten to the point where he can’t even beat fighters like Diego Chaves. Bradley wants big fights, but the problem is he’d be lucky if he could even beat fellow Top Rank stable fighter Brandon Rios.

Bradley needs to move back down to 140, because he’s not equipped to compete against the best welterweights in the division. Bradley’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank has him channeled off from the other top fighters in the division, which he pretty much can’t fight due to him being in a different lane from them. I’m talking about guys like Keith Thurman, Amir Khan, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Shawn Porter, Adrien Broner, and Danny Garcia. But perhaps it’s for the best, because I can’t see Bradley beating any of those fighters. He’s too flawed, too weak and has had too many wars.

If the WBO goes give the winner of the Bradley-Vargas fight their WBO 147lb title after Saturday, I see the winner being little more than a paper champion. You can’t expect Bradley or Vargas to be able to compete against the actual good welterweights like Mayweather, Khan, Garcia, Broner, Porter or Thurman. The Bradley-Vargas winner will be in my view the equivalent of Arthur Abraham, the WBO super middleweight champion who never faces the real quality guys like Andre Ward or Carl Froch. I don’t see Bradley or Vargas being quality fighters at 147. They’re good No. 8 or No.9 fighters, but definitely not top 5. It’s just sad that there are so many sanctioning bodies because you get the weak champions like this confusing the public and lowering the standards.