By Aaron Klein: Making his first defense of his title, undefeated WBC light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (23-0, 11 KOs) easily defeated the tough Edner Cherry (24-6-2, 12 KOs) by a lopsided 12-round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino, in Biloxi, Mississippi. The final judges’ scores were 118-109, 117-110 and 119-109, all for Bradley. It’s been four months since Bradley, 25, defeated Junior Witter to capture the WBC light welterweight title, but Bradley showed once again why many boxing fans are calling him the best fighter in the light welterweight division, better even than Ricky Hatton, by putting on a dominating performance against the 26 year-old Cherry.
Although going into the fight it was thought that Cherry would put on a good fight, Bradley had too much speed for him to deal with. Cherry was knocked down in the 8th round after getting hit with a big right hand from Bradley. Aside from that, there were no other knockdowns in the fight, and Cherry was unable to hurt Bradley with any of his own big right hand shots. In the 11th round, Cherry landed two right hands while Bradley was off balance after having thrown a punch, which caused Bradley to almost fall. However, he wasn’t hurt by the shots, only off balance after having thrown a punch of his own.