Timothy Bradley: Striving to be
the Best
By Rick Kelsheimer
Current WBO and WBC light
welterweight champion, Timothy Bradley’s nickname is “Desert Storm.” The handle
sells his ability short. A more accurate description of his relentless
attacking style in the ring would be “Desert Tornado” or “Desert Explosion.” The undefeated Bradley, who is currently
ranked as the sixth best pound for pound fighter in the world by Ring Magazine,
uses his speed and stamina to keep his opponents on their heels from the second
the bell rings. At 5’6” Bradley often seems outsized in the ring against
fighters with a much longer reach, but he never lets this stop him from being
the aggressor.
“I don’t mind taking on bigger
fighters,” Bradley said from his home in Cathedral City, California. “I feel
that it works to my advantage. I can use my quickness to hit them from inside
or out. I can adjust my style while the fight is in progress. There aren’t that
many fighters who have that ability.”
Two current fighters who do have
the same ability to adjust are Manny Pacquieo and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Timothy
Bradley makes it perfectly clear that those are the two champions he wants to
fight. “Manny Pacquieo is a great fighter and a great human being. It would be
an honor getting into the ring with him. Same goes with Floyd Mayweather Jr. It
would be an honor.”
When asked to compare his skills
to Pacquieo, Bradley was candid. “I’m not saying that I’m faster than Manny
Pacquieo, but he isn’t any faster than me. I’m just as quick. Right now he is
the best in the world and that is the position where I would like to be. To be
the best you have to beat the best. And to be honest, I don’t know how good I
am. I’m not being cocky. Nobody has ever dominated me or overpowered me, so I
want find out where the ceiling is. I want to test myself. The only way to do
this is by fighting someone of Pacquieo or Mayweather’s ability. When I step
into the ring I don’t feel like there is anybody on earth who can beat me.”
A fight with Pacquieo or
Mayweather would also bring Bradley the payday he is looking for. “It wouldn’t
be honest to say that money isn’t a factor at this point in my career. I love
being a boxer. I love the sport of boxing, but boxing is a business. Boxing is
what I do; it isn’t who I am. I want to make sure that every decision I make is
the right one for my family. My wife and kids come first.”
One of the decisions will be to
decide which promoter to sign with. Bradley wanted to address the rumors that claimed
that he had already signed with Bob Arum’s Top Rank Boxing. “I have not talked
to Top Rank or Oscar de la Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions. Right now I’m getting
ready for litigations with my current promoter Gary Shaw, who claims I still
owe him another fight. That will have to be resolved before I sign with anybody
else.”
Bradley turned down a fight with
Amir Khan, WBA Super lightweight champ and the number two ranked fighter at 140
pounds. The reason was it fell beyond the six month stipulation with his
contact with Shaw. “My contract obligated me to fight within six months of my
fight with Devon Alexander last January. They couldn’t get the deal done before
the June 29 deadline and offered me a fight on July 23. That was clearly
outside the time frame mandated by my contract. Under normal circumstances that
wouldn’t be a problem, but my wife is pregnant and is due in the first week of August.
I didn’t want to be in the last phases of training and have the baby come
without me being around. My family comes first over my career. They could have
gotten a fight for me in June if they tried. Devon Alexander got a fight in
June and he was the loser in our fight. I was the winner so you would think my
fight would take priority.”
In an interview with Sky News on
June 10, Amir Khan said, “He (Bradley) chickened out because he knew he was
going to get beaten. And if he got beaten by me, his career would be finished.
He doesn’t draw big crowds so his two titles are his savior. If I win them off
of him, he’ll be back at the small shows. Even his world title fights are small
shows. He’s scared of being beaten.”
“I try not to listen to all the
trash talk,” said Bradley “I don’t talk bad about anybody and go about my
business. The deal they offered me wasn’t what it should be. “I’m the number 1
ranked fighter in the world at 140 pounds. Khan is ranked number 2. They were
acting like it was the other way around. I’ve paid my dues.”
“When I first started boxing I
had to wait tables and wash dishes at a restaurant for eight hour before I
could go to the gym and do my training. Waiting tables is hard work. I was
tired but went to the gym anyways because I wanted to be the best. I took whatever
fights I could get and worked my way up through the ranks.”
“I’ve fought people in their own
back yards. I won the WBC title from Junior Witter in England. I won the WBC
title from Kendall Holt in Montreal. They want me to fight for another championship.
I’m already a three time champion. I have to do what’s best for my family.
“As far as being chicken of Amir
Khan, that’s ridiculous. I’m not afraid of anyone. I’ll fight (Wladamir)
Klitschko if the contract is signed. I don’t care how big or how fast someone
is, I’ll go to battle with them.”
Bradley faced a similar situation
when in 2009 the WBC stripped him of his belt for not defending his title
against Devon Alexander. “I felt like they weren’t offering enough to fight a
fighter of his caliber and once again he hadn’t paid his dues. I wanted to
fight a better fighter.”
Because I don’t have a lot of
knockouts everybody started saying that I couldn’t beat Alexander due to his
size and punching power.”
“Finally I decided to silence my
critics and fight him last January in a unification bout. Anybody who watched
the fight saw, Alexander didn’t have that much for me. There weren’t a lot of
fireworks.”
On January 29, 2011, in the
Pontiac Silverdome, Bradley reclaimed his WBC Title when Devon Alexander refused
to answer the bell in the eleventh round.
Bradley’s lack of knockouts
doesn’t concern him. “I’ve never been a power puncher. I go into a fight with
the plan to take the fight to the distance. You really have to plant your feet
and sit down on your punches to get the knockouts. That’s not my style. I don’t
like standing still that long. I want to hit them, use my quickness and move
around so they don’t have a chance to hit a stationary target. I train hard to
make sure I’ll be the one with something left at the end of the fight.”
“Tim Bradley is a talented boxer
looking for his signature moment,” says Boxing Hall of Fame Writer, Bert Sugar.
“We all thought it was going to happen with the Devon Alexander fight, but that
didn’t turn out to be that good of a fight. Bradley still needs that one fight
that everyone is going to remember. Something like the Hearns-Hagler fight.
Hopefully he’ll get that opportunity with Manny Pacquieo or someone of that
caliber somewhere down the road.”
Sugar went on to praise Bradley’s
performance outside of the ring. ‘Bradley is a great human interest story. He
is the pride of his community and gives something back. He transcends well from
the boxing community to the real world. He’s smart and likeable. Tim Bradley is
a good example of how a boxer should act outside of the ring. He’s one of the
reasons I love the boxing community so much.”
Bradley doesn’t run around with
an entourage when he’s outside of the ring. “I live a low-key life. My wife and
I hang around with our married friends. I like spending time with my kids and
watching sports on television. My wife calls me a sports junkie. I’ll watch
golf, tennis, or volleyball, I don’t care. If they have a ball or keep score;
I’ll watch it. I like to follow the Dallas Cowboys, and I love to watch the Los
Angeles Lakers. I have to admit that I’m passionate about the Lakers. They’re
my favorite team.”
Something else that Tim Bradley
is passionate about is being a father. Anything that I have accomplished in
life is because of the support of my family. My Mom and Dad were great role
models. They gave me the structure and the guidance I needed to succeed in
life. Now I have a strong wonderful wife who is the backbone our family. I want
to be the kind of father to our kids that my Dad was for me.
Four and half years ago Bradley
got together with a grade school classmate, Monica Manzo. The couple was
married a little over a year ago.
Bradley works at being a step
parent to Monica’s two children with the same drive and commitment that he does
when he steps into the ring. “Being a stepfather was a big adjustment for me. I
just decided that I was going to treat them (Robert, 11 and Alaysia, 6) like
they are my own. I don’t call them my step children. They are my children.”
When it comes to affecting
children’s lives, Tim Bradley’s influence goes way beyond his own family. When
he saw a need, he got together with some friends and formed the 150 member
Cathedral City Junior All-American Football League. Bradley serves as league president
which has players from the ages of 7 to 15. He seemed just as exited when
talking about that title as he did when speaking about the three he has won in
the ring. “We don’t have any lockouts in our league. As we speak the boys are
hard at it getting ready for the season. Right now I’m in my pre-training phase
so I’ll go down and work out with the teams. It’s been a lot of fun.”
You could hear the pride in
Bradley’s voice when talking about his stepson, Robert who has become a
standout player in the league. “He’s a monster on the field. He plays
linebacker and guard and has excelled wherever he plays. I’m not being
prejudiced. He’s really good. He loves football and I want to help him reach
his goals like my dad did for me. It takes more than talent. It takes dedication.”
“I loved football too as a kid
and wanted to play,” Bradley laughed, “but my dad wouldn’t let me. He was
afraid I might get hurt.”
Earlier this
year in a Los Angeles Times interview, Bradley’s trainer, Joel Diaz, said that
much of Bradley’s success comes from the way his dad treated him when he was
younger.”His dad has pushed him to the limit since the time he was 6. No time
to breathe, no time to quit. There's a drill sergeant mentality there,"
Diaz said. "Tim has always been told, 'Your opponent is training harder
than you.' It might look a little abusive in the beginning — the dad's not
happy until Tim's on the ground — but look at what he's got through and what
he's made of his life."
Don’t be
surprised if Bradley stays in boxing after he hangs up the gloves. He is intelligent,
well spoken and has an outgoing personality. It’s obvious that he could have a
career behind the microphone if he chooses. “I would love to be a fight
analyst. I think I’m pretty good at it. I like to watch fights on television
and try to figure out what I would have to do to beat each fighter. I usually
have my game plan by the end of the second round.”
Bradley sees himself moving up in
weight to the welterweight division to get the fight he wants. “Some people
think I’m too small to fight at 147 pounds, because I’d be fighting guys who
are six feet tall and come down from 170 pounds to compete in the division. I’m
not worried about it. I’ve had 140 amateur fights and 27 as a pro and a lot
were against bigger fighters. I think it works to my advantage. I’m quicker and
can score a lot of points by outworking them.”
Once his litigation with Gary
Shaw is concluded, Bradley hopes to have a tune-up fight sometime between late
September and November. After that he is looking for the marquee fight that
will hopefully define his career.
Whoever Bradley fights, he will
more than likely be an underdog. But keep this fact in mind. Timothy Bradley
went into fights with Junior Witter, Kendall Holt and to some degree Devon
Alexander as an underdog. In each of those cases he walked out of the ring with
their championship belts
A fight with Manny Pacquieo or
Floyd Mayweather may define Timothy Bradley’s career as a boxer, but it won’t
define him as a person. He is a true champion inside and outside of the ring.
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