Arum: Pacquiao will watch tape of Bradley’s win and decide if he wants a third fight

By Boxing News - 11/08/2015 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says his fighter Manny Pacquiao will be sitting down to watch tape of WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley’s 9th round knockout win over Brandon “Bam Bam” Rios (33-3-1, 24 KOs) to make a decision whether he’ll fight him or not on April 9th next year, according to Dan Rafael.

Earlier tonight, fighting in front of a decent but far from great crowd of 5,106 fans, Bradley made easy work of beating an out of shape 170 pound Rios in knocking him down twice in a fight televised on HBO Championship Boxing from the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

With Rios saying he’s retiring from the sport after the fight, he leaves with a payday of $800,000. Rios made other nice paydays in his three fights against Mike Alvarado, his fight against Diego Chaves and his big money fight against Manny Pacquiao in 2013. If Rios is smart with his money, he could live comfortably the rest of his life on that money he’s made.

Arum says that Bradley could fight either Pacquiao or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez next. There’s also a chance he’ll get neither of those fighters.

“Arum says Pacquiao will watch the tape of Bradley’s win and decide if he wants to fight him again. #Bradley-Rios #boxing,” Rafael said on his twitter. “Arum calls Rios a courageous warrior, applauds his decision to retire.”

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Rios said he’s retiring now that he’s been beaten. I don’t believe that at all, and I don’t believe Arum is applauding his decision. Arum’s Top Rank stable isn’t that big right now, especially around the 147lb division. With Pacquiao retiring, and Bradley likely not with too much time left in his career either at age 32, I don’t think Arum can afford to let Rios retire like this.

It took him ages to make Rios sort of popular. Bradley isn’t a pay-per-view fighter, and I don’t think he ever will be other than when he’s the B-side guy fighting Pacquiao. Terence Crawford isn’t a PPV guy either, and I don’t think he ever will be. For that reason, I don’t think Arum is going to let Rios slip away off of a loss to Bradley.

“It was a work of art,” Bradley said about his stoppage win over Rios. “I don’t have a whole lot of power to the head, but I can deliver a body shot. The way coach [Teddy Atlas] does things, it’s old school. It’s the best. This was my best camp I ever had. I just fought. Talk to my wife [about who’s next]. I’m a good student. He’s [Atlas] a great teacher.”

I wonder how Bradley’s “work of art” had been if he had been in the ring with Floyd Mayweather Jr. tonight instead of a fat and out of shape Rios? We’ve already seen Rios get exposed in the past in fights against Diego Chaves, Pacquiao, Richard Abril and Mike Alvarado. It doesn’t mean anything that Bradley was able to beat Rios too, because the guy has already been beaten. Bradley needs to start talking when he faces one of the good welterweights in the division instead of picking up his wins over the lesser fighters like Rios, Jessie Vargas and Ruslan Provodnikov.

“That was the best Bradley I’ve ever seen, and we’ve had him for so many years,” Arum said via ESPN.com.

I don’t think that was the best Bradley I’ve ever seen. I think it was the worst Rios I’ve ever seen, which made Bradley look good in comparison.



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