By Jake Donovan

Chances are that his next fight beyond this weekend will not come against Floyd Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao.

But if all goes as planned this weekend, undefeated 140 lb. titlist Tim Bradley won’t have to worry about chasing big money fights.

For the moment, the sculpted Californian boxer is one of the first that comes to mind when the term ‘high-risk, low reward’ is tossed around. Since bursting upon the title scene a couple of years ago, he has continued to collect scalps while staking his claim as the best 140 lb. fighter on the planet.

The problem for a fighter like Bradley, though, is that winning one tough fight after another without being able to make your opponent rich beyond his wildest dreams is that you eventually run out of fighters willing to step into the ring with you.

Such is what leads the best active junior welterweight on the planet to stray the nest and dip his toes into the welterweight waters this weekend when he faces heavy-handed Luis Carlos Abregu at the Agua Caliente Casino in Rancho Mirage, California (Saturday, HBO, 9:45PM ET/PT).

The decision to move up weight wasn’t his first choice, though oddly enough the original plan for this weekend’s fight when other opportunities didn’t immediately surface. From the moment HBO announced a desire to throw money at the world’s best junior welterweights, Team Bradley was anxious to cross the street after years of plying his trade in front of a Showtime-televised audience.

It was undoubtedly the right move, considering the names being tossed around. The pick of the litter is Devon Alexander, like Bradley a young, undefeated junior welterweight titlist whose talent far exceeds the type of money he can generate at the box office.

The next trick is actually getting to fight them, which brings us to the purpose of this weekend.

As far as high-profile welterweight showcases go, Bradley couldn’t ask for a better selection than Abregu – huge puncher, but strictly offensive-minded (read: easy to hit) and not exactly the sturdiest chin in the world. There is a risk of getting caught with something crazy from a naturally bigger fighter, but there also stands a great chance that Bradley not only wins, but looks good doing so.

Not that he hasn’t looked good in most, if not all, of his 25 wins in as many fights. But missing in most of those fights is the right opponents in which to look good against.

Reading back on his past five fights, you’d be hard-pressed to find a riskier run among top fighters in the sport. He traveled to England to face Junior Witter for his first title fight at a time when others in the 140 lb. division – including its champion at the time, Ricky Hatton – were doing all that they could to ignore the brash Brit.

The closest he’s been granted to a soft touch since sporting alphabet hardware around his waist was against Edner Cherry in his first title defense four months later. Since then, it’s been nothing but crossroads fight against consensus Top 10 opposition, including twice climbing off the canvas to outpoint Kendall Holt and becoming the only fighter in the game to hang a loss on former amateur standout Lamont Peterson, the latter serving as his last fight to date.

In the seven months that have followed has come frustration over an inability to further establish himself as the world’s best junior welterweight. He reached a point to where he was ready to gain weight just for the sake of remaining active, which was when co-promoter Gary Shaw first pitched the idea of a showcase fight with Abregu.

That was the plan until it was thought that something better was on the table – unification match (sort of) with interim titlist Marcos Rene Maidana. A deal was reached for the two to collide on June 19, only for the fight to be immediately postponed and subsequently canceled altogether.

Injuries were alleged to be the cause of the postponement, only for the real story to surface that Maidana was suddenly undergoing managerial issues. Conveniently, everything was worked out the moment that Bradley reverted back to Plan A, that being the fight that serves as the main event of this weekend’s HBO Boxing After Dark telecast.

The fallout with Maidana was initially disappointing, though in the end just a lot more of been there, done that for Bradley. The truth of the matter is that as far as fights that will truly raise his profile, only one fighter has bothered to publicly express a willingness to make it happen – Alexander.

Fighters such as Maidana and Amir Khan – among others – continue to nibble around the edges, voicing an interest in making big fights happen, but stopping way short of actually putting anything behind their words. The temptation is to accuse them of ducking the other top fighters in the division, but the business side of the equation suggests a holdout for a greater reward in facing a Bradley or Alexander somewhere down the road.

A similar mindset can be found among the sport’s top superstars.

Pacquiao is still regarded by some as the lineal 140 lb. champion even though his lone fight at the weight – his two-round destruction of Ricky Hatton last year – took place more than a year ago. He’s expressed no interest whatsoever in dropping down from welterweight anytime soon, if ever at all.

While the Filipino hasn’t exactly rejected a fight with Bradley, his promoter - Bob Arum – did the talking for him. The idea of such a fight was immediately rejected, claiming that Bradley represents little value in the grand scheme of things, ignoring the fact that Pacquiao’s last fight came against an even lesser-known commodity in Joshua Clottey, who brought nothing to the table other than a history of coming up short in the biggest fights of his career.

If Floyd Mayweather Jr was anywhere to be found, chances are his response would be, “Who’s that?” when presented with the prospects of facing someone like Bradley in the near future.

Other junior welterweights are already playing that game, claiming to be able to sell on their own and turning to the tired old phrase, ‘He needs me more than I need him.’

But Bradley needn’t worry much longer about what others think. In his sights is the only other fighter in the world – Alexander - who can stake a valid claim to be the best in the division. Now on his side for the first time in his career is the network with the deepest pockets in the industry in HBO.

And with an appealing enough performance this weekend, he can look forward to the day where he no longer seeks a big money fight, but instead represents one.

Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com and an award-winning member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Contact Jake at JakeNDaBox@gmail.com .