By Lem Sattferfield
WBO champion, Tim Bradley, won't be watching Saturday night's HBO-televised, double-header from New York's Madison Square Garden, even though it features four of the premiere fighters and potential future rivals from his junior welterweight class -- perhaps the deepest, toughest and most talented division in boxing.
That's because Bradley will be in the midst of being married to his fiance of four years, Monica Smoot.
Meanwhile, at The Garden, WBA titlist, Amir Khan (22-1, 16 KOs), of England, will make his American debut against Brooklyn's Paulie Malignaggi (27-3, five knockouts), while the under card features "Vicious" Victor Ortiz (26-2-1, 21 KOs) facing 37-year-old former world champ, Nate Campbell (33-5-1, 25 KOs).
Bradley, however, expects to receive updates on the fighters' progress from his brother-in-law, Chris Manzo, and, his co-promoters, Gary Shaw and Ken Thompson -- all of whom will be receiving the blow-by-blow from various sources on their cell phones.
"I won't be watching the fights because I'll be spending the evening with my beautiful fiance and my future wife," said Bradley, a 26-year-old, WBO champion with a record of 25-0, with 11 knockouts, to BoxingScene.com. "But I've also got a bet on the fights with my brother-in-law -- I've got Amir Khan and Nate Campbell winning."
But in his match up with Malignaggi, Bradley expects Khan, a 2004 Olympic silver medalist, to have more trouble than he believes most people realize.
"I have Amir Khan as the slight favorite, but only a slight favorite in what I believe won't be a great fight, but rather, a boring fight, stylistically," said Bradley. "I have Amir Khan winning due to the fact that I think that he can match Malignaggi's speed."
But in terms of experience, said Bradley, the nod goes to Malignaggi.
"Malignaggi's been in there with Miguel Cotto and Ricky Hatton, and he beat Juan Diaz. He took Cotto's punches, and he's been through the wars," said Bradley. "Plus, Malignaggi has good defense, good refleces and can be hard to hit. He can make it very difficult for Khan. That's why I don't think that it's going to be an exciting fight."
Bradley has a different view of Ortiz-Campbell.
"Now that's a fight. I think that's the fight of the night. It's one that I would pay to see," said Bradley. "But I give the edge to Nate because he's got that dog in him. He seems focused and ready to leave it all out there in the ring. It's like it's his last hurrah, and he's going to make it count."
Bradley, himself, has designs on fighting Khan, if not, southpaw WBC and IBF king, Devon Alexander (20-0, 13 KOs), that latter of whom is the division's lone unifited champion.
Bradley's secheduled July 17 bout with 26-year-old WBA interim king, Marcos Rene Maidana (28-1, 27 KOs) fell through as a result of a back injury suffered by Maidana.
Alexander is coming off March's eighth-round knockout of then-IBF titlist, Juan Urango (22-3-1, 17 KOs), who was stopped for the first time in his career.
Alexander is now looking for an opponent for Aug. 7 in his hometown of St. Louis, Mo.
"Devon is tough. We can do that fight, but it's got to be for the right amount of money because I've got mouths to feed. There was a time, after I fought Kendall Holt, when they only wanted to give me $150,000 to fight Devon, but that's why I turned down that fight and relinquished that [WBC] belt that Devon has," said Bradley.
"Devon and I are the two best fighters in our weight class, but Devon's got some growing to do. If Devon walked down the street in California where I'm from, no one would know him. But if I went back East, say, to Florida, they would know me," said Bradley.
"I'm definitely hungry for that fight, but I think that what's best is that we each fight a couple of more times, and then our fight would be huge," said Bradley. "But I definitely want that fight, because [Alexander's manager and trainer] Kevin Cunningham has been talking way too much, and I want to shut him up."
Lem Satterfield is the boxing editor for AOL FanHouse and the news editor for BoxingScene.com