By Keith Idec
Timothy Bradley’s busy schedule didn’t permit him to watch the Ruslan Provodnikov-Chris Algieri junior welterweight title fight Saturday night.
All the former welterweight and junior welterweight champion knows is based on what he has read on the Internet about the fight and that his mom (Provodnikov) and dad (Algieri) had differing opinions on who won the 12-round fight at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Bradley also knows that Algieri’s surprising split-decision win ruined any shot at making a Bradley-Provodnikov rematch either later this year or next year.
The 30-year-old Bradley (31-1, 12 KOs, 1 NC) survived severe trouble on multiple occasions against Russia’s Provodnikov (23-3, 16 KOs) during their first fight, an instant classic that won numerous “Fight of the Year” awards for 2013, to win a unanimous decision 16 months ago in Carson, Calif. Fans would welcome a rematch, but Bradley thinks the timing is wrong.
“He lost to a guy no one really knew,” Bradley said of Provodnikov. “The remedy is just to out-box him. The first time I chose to slug. The second time around, it’d be even easier because I won’t stand there and fight with this guy. I’d fight my fight. But like I said before, I was waiting for this guy to build his stock, come up and earn the rematch, man. He won a championship [from Mike Alvarado], but he just lost his title. So it’s like, where do we go from here? I’ve got a loss. I’ve just suffered my first loss. This is his third loss, but at the same time I lost to one of the best fighters of this generation. So there’s a different level there.”
Bradley referred to his 12-round, unanimous-decision defeat to Filipino superstar Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) in their rematch April 12 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.