With Teddy Atlas in his corner, Bradley was a different fighter, more focused, more disciplined, unmistakably new and vastly improved?
Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, WBO World welterweight champion Timothy ?Desert Storm? Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs), from Palm Springs, California, successfully defended his title by knocking out Brandon Rios (33-3-1, 14 KOs), from Oxnard, California, at 2:49 of round nine.
Fighting out of the red corner in black trunks with orange and tan trim, Bradley scored his first KO since 2011. With Teddy Atlas in his corner, having replaced longtime trainer Joel Diaz, Bradley was a different fighter, more focused, more disciplined, unmistakably new and vastly improved.
Rios, fighting out of the blue corner in white trunks, said he was retiring after the fight. His difficulties in making weight, which is an indication of his lack of discipline, may have finally caught up with him and this time for good.
Bradley asserted his superiority at the opening bell. He was landing jabs. He was landing combinations. He was landing hooks. He was landing uppercuts and body shots. Bradley was also moving beautifully, darting in and out, not engaging, boxing smart but also boxing assertive. Rios was eating punches, lots of punches, which is what Rios does.
Between rounds Atlas told the champ, ?I don?t need you to get greedy. I don?t need four punches. I need two or three and get outside.?
Bradley landed 34 of 71 punches thrown in round one to 7 of 40 for Rios.
Rios was busier in the second. He was no less slow and didn?t move his head, but at least he let his hands go. Bam Bam landed a right and nice shot to the body on the inside. Bradley took it, Bradley always takes it, but unlike Rios he didn?t just stand there, he fought back.
According to CompuBox, Bradley landed 28 of 48 to 12 of 61 for Rios in round two.
Rios had his moments in the third round. He was the aggressor. He was applying pressure. But Bradley kept his cool. He was sharp. He was disciplined. He was slowly was surely breaking Rios down. Still, as good as Bradley looked, he didn?t appear that much different than Bradley at his best. So much had been made of Teddy Atlas and the seven weeks he had worked with Bradley, I was beginning the fear that the Amen Choir of boxing writers might have inadvertently jinxed the fighter and his new trainer.
But it was not to be.
Bradley swept rounds four through seven landing hard shots to the body and head. Whenever Rios moved forward to deliver punches of his own, Bradley stepped around him and countered beautifully. Rios? graceless footwork helped, somewhat, and perhaps when Bradley understood that Rios, while still a dangerous fighter was nevertheless a fighter on the skids, he was able to put Teddy?s instructions into play, which made him all the more effective.
Robert Garcia?s entreaty to Rios, ?You?ve got to throw more punches,? fell on deaf ears. It wasn?t that Rios didn?t want to throw more punches. It was that he couldn?t throw more punches. A quintessential face-first fighter, Rios has been unintelligible for a long time. He is now, alas, after watching him struggle against Bradley, a spent force, an officially shot fighter.
Bradley was bouncing punches off Rios?s head in the eighth. The Oxnard native was no longer smiling and smirking at Bradley?s lack of power. He was enduring a beating and it wasn?t pretty. Bradley, however, was superb, a rejuvenated fighter moving side to side and outpunching his game but diminished foe.
Between rounds eight and nine, Garcia turned to pleading. ?Let?s go. C?mon, Brandon. You?re disappointing everyone. You?re not doing nothing.?
In the opposite corner, Atlas told Bradley, ?He needs your help to win this fight. Control the action. Let your hands go.?
Bradley did as instructed in the ninth. Forty seconds into the round, he landed several body shots that put Rios on the canvas. He was up at nine. No sooner had the referee wiped his gloves than Bradley unloaded several more body shots that put Rios down again. Tony Weeks had seen enough. We had all seen enough.
After the fight Rios said, ?I had a wonderful career. I think it?s time to hang up my gloves. I?m not giving it my all and I don?t want to take beatings for no reason. I love this sport so much that it?s hard to turn away from it. But when it?s time to hang it up it?s time to hang it up and the time is now.
?I?m not going to fool myself and make myself look like a jackass and get beat up. I can live life now. I made it further than anybody thought I would. I proved everyone wrong.?
It was a sad end for Brandon Rios.
It was a joyous resurrection for Timothy Bradley.
