By Keith Idec

Bob Arum is intrigued by the idea Timothy Bradley floated recently about moving up to middleweight to challenge Gennady Golovkin.

That shouldn’t surprise anyone, since Arum’s company, Top Rank Inc., promotes Bradley (31-1-1, 12 KOs, 1 NC) and would make money off that fight. Bradley has never fought above the welterweight limit of 147 pounds, but that didn’t stop Arum from mentioning a potential Bradley-Golovkin clash during a press conference Thursday to promote Bradley’s WBO welterweight title fight against Jessie Vargas (23-0, 9 KOs) on Saturday night at StubHub Center in Carson, Calif. (HBO; 9:45 p.m. ET).

“Everybody that follows boxing knows the skill that Tim Bradley brings to the ring,” Arum said. “He’s a four-time champion. But more than that, he’s a guy who is not afraid to fight anyone. Now he has a tough fight on Saturday with Jessie Vargas, who’s coming to make a name for himself by hoping to defeat Timothy Bradley.

“But Tim looks to the future and he knows that he will fight anybody that’s put in front of him. So when he says, ‘Bring on this great middleweight champion, Triple-G Golovkin,’ people might laugh because Tim is somewhat smaller than Golovkin. But I’m not laughing, and none of you should laugh because I wouldn’t bet against Tim Bradley against anyone. Because with his grit and determination and guts, he can fight anybody that he says he can, that is put in front of him.”

At 5-foot-6, Bradley, of Palm Springs, Calif., is more than four inches smaller than Kazakhstan’s Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs), who has knocked out 91 percent of his professional opponents. Golovkin has said he would move down to 154 pounds for certain fights, most notably a showdown with pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs). It is unclear, however, if Golovkin would consider dropping that low for a fight against Bradley.

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.