By Ryan Burton
WBO welterweight king Tim Bradley (30-0 12 KOs) has had nothing but praise for Ruslan Provodnikov, whom he defeated on March 16th in Carson, CA in an early "Fight of he Year" candidate. On a recent edition of BoxingScene Radio, Bradley explained why he exchanged with the hard hitting Siberian.
"That's a good question. I had to come in there and show this guy who the boss was and I guess he showed me who was the boss," Bradley stated as he admitted that he was looking to end the fight early.
"Ruslan Provodnikov is no slouch man. You gotta give it up to him. He's a great fighter. I trained hard for this fight. I took him very seriously and I am glad I did. He's a very tough fighter. I went in there and I wanted to take him out. I'm not going to lie. I wanted to take him out and I got hurt early on," he continued.
Bradley normally uses Grant gloves but used Cleto Reyes for this fight. He said that he isn't sure if the gloves had any effect on the fights outcome but Provodnikov's face was cut and badly bruised after the fight.
"I don't know if it did anything different. I didn't knock him out or anything but I know he was very swollen up and I was able to cut him with those gloves. I'm not going to say anything bad about the other gloves though. Just being honest I prefer the Grants," Bradley admitted.
The native Southern Californian siad that his plan was to continue to apply pressure throughout the fight and that he thought Provodnikov wouldn't be able to handle it.
"For some reason I just wanted to fight him, take complete control. I thought maybe I can take him to deep waters and drown him. I thought he might fade but I was completely wrong," Bradley told us on BoxingScene Radio.
The 29-year-old Bradley was badly hurt in the 1st, 2nd, 6th and 12th rounds. He thinks that his rapid weight loss may have led to his inability to take a punch. Bradley has been down before to the likes of Kendall Holt but has never been hurt the way he was against Provodnikov. He admitted that his weight ballooned during his 9 month period of inactivity between the Manny Pacquiao and Ruslan Provodnikov fights.
"I think I wasn't able to take a punch because of my weight. I was up to 185 pounds after the Pacquiao fight and I know that two weeks before the fight I was still 20 pounds over. I've never been that heavy. I was up to 160 fight night and I've never been that night. I'm usually around 150," said Bradley.
You can listen to the interview in its entirety by clicking here: http://tobtr.com/s/4461507
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