The night Timothy Bradley’s hand
was controversially raised in his June 2012 clash with Manny Pacquiao was
supposed to be the greatest night of his boxing career. Bradley made a
career-high payday of $5 million, was commended in trying to sell a pay per
view that seemingly was built to fail and even better was that the
controversial win got more people talking about him after the fight than
before.
Bradley (29-0, 12 KO) thought
that controversy would no doubt lead him back into pay per view territory
against Pacquiao or Pacquiao’s nemesis Juan Manuel Marquez. He thought he had
hit the jackpot.
The months went by though and
Pacquiao expressed no interest to regain his title in a rematch, instead opting
for a more financially lucrative rematch with Marquez only to be knocked out
cold in the sixth round. There would be no offers of a primetime fight against
anybody of relevance, save for Lamont Peterson who Bradley already (and easily)
beat back in 2009.
Whatever momentum Bradley had
from “winning” the WBO Welterweight title from Pacquiao has faded into
nothingness and that point has been made all but clear as Bradley returns to
the ring against Friday Night Fight’s staple Ruslan Provodnikov (22-1, 15 KO)
on HBOs World Championship boxing next weekend in Carson, Ca.
In the months leading up to the
Pacquiao fight, trainer Freddie Roach chided that any of Pacquiao’s sparring
partners would beat Bradley had he the opportunity to match them up. Roach will
get just that as Provodnikov was in Pacquiao’s camp for the Bradley fight, but
upon further analysis of the rugged Provodnikov , Roach’s comment may not hold
too much water.
Provodnikov is a fighter in the
ilk of the late Arturo Gatti and future Hall of Famer Jorge Arce who is so
rough around the edges, he can’t help but make an entertaining fight with
anybody. Yet when Gatti and Arce strayed too far from palooka-ville and tried
out for the big leagues, they weren’t only beaten but beaten badly.
This doesn’t bode too well for
Provodnikov whose most notable wins were against the badly faded Emmanuel
Augustus and DeMarcus Corley in addition to the knick-knack opponents commonly
seen on a prospect’s record. His lone loss came at the hands of Mauricio
Herrera who himself has fallen short of falling short of contender status on
more than one occasion.
If Provodnikov had his hands full
against Herrera and clearly lost that fight, it begs the question of how he’s
going to fair against Bradley who is a high caliber champion?
Well, this pretty much sums up why this fight
was made and why the opponent was chosen, doesn’t it? This fight wasn’t made in
the interest of competitiveness, but as an opportunity for Top Rank to hit the reset
button on the Timothy Bradley experiment and get back on track with the young
champion.
Bradley has been treated as a
loser by the boxing public, the easy-to-influence boxing media and by his
promoter since the night of his pyrrhic victory that it’s only appropriate that
he is being matched in a bounce-back fight against a soft touch opponent chosen
for the purpose of getting pummeled.
And win Bradley shall, be it by
winning every round against his hapless opponent or the fight being stopped by
cuts which would no doubt be caused by his dome of doom. Nothing short of a
miracle will do for Provodnikov. Should he win, it will soften the nine months
of hell that he’s experienced and hopefully get him moving ahead to bigger and
better things.
An impressive victory over
Provodnikov isn’t going to guarantee future showdown with Marquez or a rematch
with Pacquiao, but it should at least command some attention for his next
fight, which could possibly be against the winner of the Jesse Vargas-Wale
Omotoso match on the undercard.
Though the fight is nothing short
of a mismatch it should be entertaining to see a motivated Bradley dominate his
opponent who will have no plan B, as is the staple of any Freddie Roach
fighter, and the Vargas-Omotoso fight shouldn’t be too bad either.
On paper, it definitely is a weak
double-header but let’s hope the action in the ring overrides the low
expectations that overshadow the Saturday night fights.
