Did you get a load of Tim Bradley Saturday night from Palm Springs, CA? Bob Arum was there. He saw Bradley. But Arum was on the wrong side. Bradley fights under the Gary Shaw Productions banner.
Bradley won a feisty 12 -round decision over No.1 ranked and undefeated Lamont Peterson. Almost shutting him out on all three scorecards and scoring a couple of early knockdowns. Arum had Peterson.
Bradley, 26, is now 25-0 (11 KO’s).
He has made two defenses of his WBO 140 title and made two before that when he held the WBC 140 title.
“Desert Storm.” has now rattled off consecutive victories over, Peterson, Nate Campbell, Kendall Holt, Edner Cherry, and Junior Witter. The Campbell fight was overturned to a no-contest but pay it no mind.
What we have here is a case of some serious, big-time matchmaking. You don’t end up in fights like these by accident. Each a bit different in styles and more difficult than the one before it.
Bradley was dropped twice by Holt, but won. That may have been his most difficult.
Mr. Bradley is being groomed by Shaw for something big. Something special. He still has some rough spots, but he’s getting there.
This is not Shaw’s first rodeo either as my Filipino readers would tell you.
Take a big guess. I don’t think I’m too far out on a limb to say Bradley would be a serious challenger one day for Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
If Bradley can get close to 147, either Pacquiao or Mayweather, Jr. would certainly take a hard look at Bradley and salivate over his stunning but misleading lack of knockout power (only 11 KO’s).
Shaw can make those (only) 11 knockouts look like 25. Those are always cosmetic problems, easily fixed. No pun intended..
Bradley looks like a fighter. He has a little Joe Frazier thing going on.
I’m saying a year, maybe three fights down the road, Tim Bradley will be a regular at examiner.com, philboxing.com and pacland.com
Otherwise, why would Shaw go to all the bother?
