By Chris Williams: Former two division world champion Tim “Desert Storm” Bradley (33-2-1, 13 KOs) could be retiring from boxing after he finishes out his existing two-year contract with his promoters at Top Rank in August 2018. It’s probably a good thing that Bradley is retiring soon. He could get hurt if he faces someone good.
Bradley, 33, only fought once in 2016 in losing a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision to Manny Pacquiao in April in a fight that few fans were interested in seeing. Now with the cycle of rematches against 38-year-old Pacquiao appearing to be done, Bradley doesn’t have a lot of options for big money fights at 147.
Bradley was fortunate to sign with Top Rank years ago, because he was put in with Pacquiao over and over again for big paydays. If Bradley had been with another promotional company, it might have been one and done for him when matched against a star. Bradley was lucky in signing with Top Rank. They let him fight Pacquiao repeatedly.
“Maybe a couple more fights,” said Bradley to Fighthub. ”Maybe I’ll finish out my contract with Top Rank and be done. Nobody is too big for me! But it’s about health too. I’m trying to leave this sport with some sense. I think about it (retirement) a lot.”
Arum will likely match Bradley against Jessie Vargas again. Now that Arum has a working relationship with the promoters for welterweight Jeff Horn, he might choose to match Bradley against him as well. Those are not big fights unfortunately. I don’t think there’s any big fights out there for Bradley, and I’m not sure that Arum would make the fights if they were unless they were guys from his own stable.
Bradley doesn’t have the punching power to compete with the quality in the 147lb division. If you throw Bradley in the ring with Errol Spence Jr. or Keith Thurman, it’s not likely going to go well for him against either of those guys. Bradley would likely jump at the chance to fight Saul Canelo Alvarez if that option were available to him, but it probably isn’t.
The Mexican star isn’t going to fight a smaller fighter like Bradley and then have to deal with more criticism from the boxing world for him facing another smaller fighter than himself. Canelo knocked out welterweight Amir Khan last year in May. He can’t get a reputation for fighting only smaller or less talented fighters.
It’s likely that Bradley’s promoter Bob Arum will stick him back in with Jessie Vargas for a rematch. That’s pretty much a given. I don’t know if that fight sells though. It would likely need to be on regular HBO, because neither guy has done anything since losing to Pacquiao. As far as other fights for Bradley goes, there’s not a lot for him at 147.
If Arum is willing to match Bradley against non-Top Rank fighters, then there are TONS of great fights for him. I don’t know if Arum will do that. He seems do a lot of in house fights involving a lot of his Top Rank guys. If Bradley could convince Arum to match him against a non-Top Rank fighter like Keith Thurman, Adrien Broner, Shawn Porter, Amir Khan or Danny Garcia, it would be great for him.
Before losing to Pacquiao, Bradley had wins over Top Rank fighters Brandon Rios and Jessie Vargas. Those weren’t big fights, but decent payday matches involving Bradley facing flawed fighters. Bradley fought to a 12 round draw with Diego Chaves in 2014, and was beaten soundly by Pacquiao in that year as well. Bradley had wins over Juan Manuel Marquez, Ruslan Provodnikov and Pacquiao from 2012 to 2013.
The Provodnikov fight was a grueling one for Bradley, because he chose to slug with him and he ended up getting badly hurt by the hard hitting Russian fighter. Bradley won, but he took a beating. Bradley also took a lot of punishment in his draw with the tough Argentinian Diego Chaves. Surprisingly, Bradley beat Marquez fairly easy by using movement for 12 rounds, and choosing not to exchange with him. It was not an interesting fight to watch for many boxing fans though.