Boxing is endlessly fascinating, but endlessly parochial, and I must have inadvertently changed the subject when talking with Teddy Atlas?
Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, in a fight televised live on HBO, WBO World welterweight champion Timothy ?Desert Storm? Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KOs), from Palm Springs, California, defends his title against former WBA lightweight champion Brandon ?Bam Bam? Rios (33-2-1, 24 KOs), from Oxnard, California.
Despite the wear and tear both men have endured during their careers, 32-year-old Bradley is less worn and torn than 29-year-old Rios. Bradley may have fought tougher competition, but his athleticism and ring acumen have enabled him to avoid getting bludgeoned, except when he gets hit and decides to engage.
That, however, is something of a Bradley trademark and one of the reasons his fights are exciting. But despite his lack of knockout power, Timothy Bradley comes to fight, especially when boxing alone doesn?t seem to be doing the trick.
Rios, on the other hand, never met a punch he didn?t like, even if it was thrown by somebody else. As rugged an individual as he is rugged a fighter, Bam Bam likes nothing more than to go toe-to-toe with anyone fool enough to accept those terms, as Mike Alvarado, among others, have discovered.
?I am excited to get back into the ring on November 7 against a very game and very dangerous Brandon Rios,? said Bradley. ?I know that he is dedicated to giving the fans what they pay for. So am I.?
Rios has lost two of his last four fights, to Mike Alvarado and Manny Pacquiao in 2013, both of whom boxed their way to victory. But Rios isn?t finished. He won?t be fighting in his 40s, he?s not that type of fighter, but he?s not done yet, and not by a long shot.
?We?ve been looking for a big fight and at last we have it,? said Rios. ?I know Bradley?s going to come out and fight. We are ready for the best Tim Bradley, the one who beat Juan Manuel Marquez. I have been in camp for three months. This is the Camp Zone. We brought in three kinds of sparring partners?a boxer, a brawler and a boxer-brawler. I want to get back on top in boxing. Bradley is in my way. Bradley is going to be my ticket back to the top.?
Sparring with a boxer, a brawler, and a boxer-brawler pretty much covers all bases as far as Bradley is concerned. But Bradley has a not so secret weapon going into this fight, namely longtime ESPN analyst, the irrepressible and always entertaining Teddy Atlas.
I remember talking with Atlas in the gym in the basement of his home on Staten Island a few years ago, and not surprisingly the subject was boxing. Because boxing is endlessly fascinating, but endlessly parochial, I must have inadvertently changed the subject.
Atlas looked at me, less with dismay than a bit sheepishly and said, ?All I know is boxing.?
But knowing one thing well is better than knowing many things insufficiently, and if one knows his subject very well, so much the better.
?I?m an extremist,? Bradley said at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. ?That?s why I?m here. When I believe in something, when I want something, I put everything into it. Teddy?s the same way. He?s going to be completely dialed in. Teddy is going to tell me straight up what I?m doing wrong, and then he?s going to correct it. That?s what I need at this point of my career.
?Me and Teddy talked and Teddy said, ?Tim, you can?t use your balls in this fight, you have to use your brain.? He told me I have to choose my poison the right way.
?It?s the same kind of risk as Jessie Vargas, just a different style. But Brandon Rios isn?t going to take me to an elite level if I beat him. I?ve been at the elite level. I fought Manny Pacquiao twice. I fought Marquez. I fought against Ruslan Provodnikov. The list goes on and on. The only top guy in the division I didn?t fight was Mayweather. Beating Brandon Rios will just be another great fighter on my r?sum?.?
?Tim is unbelievably intelligent,? Atlas told The Desert Sun, Bradley?s hometown newspaper. ?I have to give most of the credit to him being such a willing and intelligent pupil to be able to pick it up in a condensed period of time and then be able to implement it into a very difficult place?inside that square circle with a man trying to go take your head off. It ain?t easy to do. But all that matters is what happens on November 7th. The rest of this is bull.?
