WBO junior welterweight (140 pounds) champion, Tim Bradley, was supposed to be in for the most difficult challenge of his career last month against Lamont Peterson.
But Bradley almost made the fight look easy.
The 26-year-old Palm Springs, Calif., resident scored a unanimous decision over Peterson, flooring him in the third round, rising to 25-0 with 11 knockouts, and dropping Peterson to 27-1, with 13 KOs.
FanHouse caught up with the man known as “The Desert Storm” to talk about the fight with Peterson, and, what’s next, among other things.
FanHouse: Can you take us back to your fight against Lamont Peterson on Dec. 12?
Tim Bradley: I put on a show, man. I think the knockdown was critical. I think it took him out of his whole gameplan and all that he wanted to do was just fight after that. All that he wanted to do was be in my face and just try to slug it out with me.
I was able to pretty much out-box him after that.
FH: Was it a factor before the fight that your body was glistening with sweat and that his body looked dry?
Bradley: Absolutely. When I train, it’s for like three hours — every day, six days a week. So what’s warming up an hour or 45 minutes before the fight? The warmer your blood is, you’ve got your blood flowing, and you’re firing on all cylinders.
I was ready to go from the opening bell. As soon as I got into my dressing room, I started warming up. I’m shaking out, stretching out, you know what I mean? I’ll sit down for a little while, get my wraps on. Then, once I get my wraps on, then it’s on.
I’m not going to sit down before the fights on. Sometimes I’m warming up as far as 45 minutes out to an hour out, depending who I’m fighting and how I’m feeling that night. I was extremely loose, man.
FH: Do you believe that you set the tone by jumping on him and hurting him with the right hand with about a minute left in the first round?
Bradley: Yes, I do. But as soon as I stung him, I went straight to him and he kind of stepped back. I lost my footing a little bit because I maybe rushed too much. But I think that if I would have caught him again, without losing my footing, I might have gotten him at the right time.
But it was that little, half-step and that half-second that was enough recovering time for him right there.
FH: Did he ever hurt you in the fight?
Bradley: I want to say that he caught me in the fourth with a right hand. I think that it was a straight right hand on the ropes. I wasn’t stung or anything. It was a good shot. I wasn’t stung, but I was off balance, and I was sort of moving along the ropes.
He threw a right hand and it looked like he sort of buckled me.
FH: What effect do you believe the knock-down had on him?
Bradley: Going back to the third, when I dropped him, and going into the fourth, I think that he changed gameplans. I’ve watched the video, and I heard his corner telling him, ‘Now, you’ve got to just step to him and go to his body and go to his head.’
I was able to adjust to everything. I saw that he was just trying to bang with me, and I just got on my bicycle and just started doing what I do best, which is box. Everybody didn’t know that I could actually move and box. They just thought that I was a straight-forward fighter.
FH: What do you mean by that?
Bradley: The majority of my fights, the style of the opponents I’ve been facing, they don’t like pressure. They fight at a certain pace. So we kind of look at the fight and see what kind of style that I need to bring to the table to beat them.
That’s why I’ve been so successful is because I’m able to adjust.Kendall Holt doesn’t like pressure, you know what I mean?
But you’ve got to be cautious a litte bit, because he can punch. You’ve got to gauge the two. You’ve got to know when to step to him, when to step back. When to step to him.
Every time he takes a step forward, you take a step back, and then, you throw punches at him. As soon as he backs up, you have to step foward. But you have to fight a smart fight with Kendall Holt. But it was mainly pressure, because he fights at a comfortable pace.
Kendall doesn’t like to throw a lot of punches. He’s more of a percision type of fighter.
FH: What about Lamont Peterson?
Bradley: I saw the same thing with Lamont Peterson. But I knew that he could switch — he could box and he could brawl too.
So, I had to gauge the two. When he wanted to brawl, I knew that I had to box. When he wanted to box, I knew that I had to apply pressure. That’s the way that the fight went.
When Lamont wanted to brawl, I just started boxing. When he stepped back and started boxing — he was trying to box me from the beginning, in the opening rounds — I stepped to him. It just depends on the style of opponents that I’m facing and what they’re going to bring to the table.
I can slug — I’m not the best slugger, but I can do it. I’m not the best boxer, but I can do that as well.
FH: Did you appreciate the mastery of your effort when the scores were announced, or when you got home and watched the tape of the fight?
Bradley: I think that it was when I got home and actually looked at the fight on video. A lot of people were coming up to me after the fight and saying, ‘Man, you put on a heckuva performance.’ I felt that I did okay, but I didn’t think that I had done anything outstanding.
I was like, ‘I made a lot of mistakes in the ring,’ and, ‘I could have done a little bit more of this,’ and, ‘a little bit more of that.’ But when I got home, I really looked at the fight. The ring was small. It was a little bitty ring and I was able to move on angles.
I got to see what I was actually doing in the ring. It just came naturally in there. We worked on it in training, but it just came really naturally. My trainer told me that the way that I was going to beat Lamont was to be myself. He said, ‘you be yourself in the ring, you’ll have no problem beating this guy.’
I was myself that night. I just did what I had to do and I just stayed relaxed, used my experience, stayed poised against the young guy and just out-witted him.
FH: But didn’t Lamont Peterson keep coming and trying to win?
Bradley: Absolutely. And that shows you how big of a heart Lamont has. He fought to the end. He never gave up in there. With that said, after the fight, I said, ‘Man, this guy never gave up. This guy was tough — probably the toughest opponent that I’ve faced.’
When I fought against Junior Witter, and Edner Cherry — those were different styles. They really didn’t make me work as hard as I had to work as hard as I did against Lamont. When I fought against Kendall Holt, I had to work really hard against Kendall Holt, because I had to do some catching up and he hits pretty hard.
But I would say that Lamont is up there as one of my toughest fights, him and Kendall Holt. But I give the edge to Lamont due to his heart and his determination. I’m dishing it out, and he’s coming right back. I give it to Lamont — he is probably my toughest opponent that I’ve faced.
FH: Did you in any way envision this type of performance prior to the fight?
Bradley: I wasn’t sure if I was going to have a dominant performance over him. I knew that if I had won, it was going to be unanimous, but not as dominant as it turned out to be — I really didn’t. I was pretty nervous for this fight. I thought that it was going to be a challenge.
I’m never really nervous before a fight. Maybe a little nervous. But for this fight, I was just like, ‘There’s so much riding on this fight, and so much on the line.’ With him being the No. 1 challenger and if I was to lose, I lose my title, and there’s no rematch clause.
There was just so much riding on this fight, and I know the downfalls of boxing. Lose one fight and you have to rebuild. It was just a lot of added pressure on me, so I was a bit nervous for this fight.
FH: Was Lamont Peterson the perfect foil to allow you to take all of your skills to the next level?
Bradley: Right, right. Styles make fight. I feel that a lot of critics and everybody felt like this guy was going to beat me. I feel that they thought that he had every advantage — longer arms, taller, amateur pedigree, the ability to keep me at bay.
But after this fight, I silenced a lot of critics. He came straight forward and I was able to just pick him off and move and use my lateral movement, and my boxing ability and my speed to keep him off balance and lost in the ring.
He basically helped me too look that great in the ring. Honestly, I kind of expected a different fight. But the best man in there that is going to win is the man that is able to adjust and adapt in the ring. I think that a lot of people think that he was the best fighter that I was going to have faced.
During the fight, and after the right, I said that he was my hardest opponent — probably due to the fact that he kept fighting and never gave up. Lamont’s will was tremendous. But that was the perfect style for me.
FH: Who would you like to fight next?
Bradley: We’ve been in talks with Amir Khan’s people. We’ve talked to Paulie Malignaggi’s camp. We’ve talked to Juan Manuel Marquez’s camp, we’ve talked to Ricky Hatton’s camp. We’ve talked to all of the top dogs of the division, and I’ve heard that Juan Urango’s going to go at it with Devon Alexander.
All of the rest of those guys, they’re all options. But the biggest fight, I think, right now, for me, and the one that I think that the world wants to see is myself and Amir Khan. They want to see us go at it in that unification bout. And the winner can fight the winner between Juan Urango and Devon Alexander.
FH: So you’re talking a Super-Six type of tournament in an abbreviated format with the four, junior welterweight champions?
Bradley: Absolutely. Absolutely. If I get Amir Khan, and I beat Amir Khan, there’s no other place to go — unless you’re talking about the other names like Manny Pacquiao, Ricky Hatton or Juan Manuel Marquez wanting to get down. But those guys, they’re trying to do a round-robin among themselves because of the big money involved and their huge names.
But us belt-holders, we can get it done. We can definitely have a little round-robin, with me fighting Amir, Devon fighting Urango, and whoever wins, fights the winner between Amir Khan and Tim Bradley.
That right there would let the whole world know who is the best 140 pounder in the world.
