Timothy Bradley: “Everybody knows Khan’s a phony now.”

http://www. e a s t sideboxing.com/news.php?p=30124&more=1 His views on Lamont Peterson’s upset victory against Amir Khan last weekend: “You know what? I thought Peterson was going to bring a good fight, but I didn’t think he was going to win the fight and he proved me wrong. Peterson brought it too Khan, and I said if he brought it to him he has a good chance of winning the fight. Then I did say it’s in his hometown, so that will definitely help him as well with the boxing fans, and whatever anybody wants to say with the judges, or ref, or whatever. So I mean he put on a great performance. It was a great fight, man! I really enjoyed watching it. It was fun to watch. It was a crowd-pleasing fight and I really enjoyed it at home.” His views on Khan’s performance in his split decision loss against Peterson: “Well you know, like I’ve always said, payback is a ***** and karma is a *****. When I was down he kicked me into the mud, and I hated it! You know what I mean? There was nothing I could do because of my situation that I was in and I was going through legal issues. I couldn’t really talk. I couldn’t really say anything and voice my opinion on why I didn’t want to fight Khan at that given moment. But now Peterson beat him. I beat Peterson a couple of years ago. A lot of people are saying he’s better now than he was a couple of years ago. He probably wasn’t ready for me at the time when he did face me. But you know he’s still pretty much to me, he’s probably mentally stronger, but as far as skill-wise he’s at the same level and I beat him. It’s just funny to see. I know styles make fights, but my style is tailor-made for Khan, and everybody will see that when we do face each other. I think it’s still a great fight to be held somewhere in the future. Now that he’s lost, it’s a little further away now. So Khan’s got to do some rebuilding now or win back his titles. I hear there is a rematch clause going on in effect. If Peterson wants to do that—hey, whatever. You know like I said I’m on my own mission. I got a purpose in this boxing game and I’m definitely going to be following the plan that we have structured.” On whether he feels Lamont Peterson won the fight or Amir Khan lost the fight: “I thought Lamont Peterson won the fight. I thought Khan, going into the last round, was winning the fight because I think he had a really good eleventh round. But as far as winning the fight with the point deductions and the whole knockdown thing, I thought Peterson won the fight. I haven’t watched the replay but at the time when I was scoring it, going into the eighth round it was even. It was dead even going into the eighth round. Once I watch the replay then I can really give you a good assessment on who won the fight and if Khan won the fight, but as of right now I feel that Peterson won the fight. Absolutely.” His views on why Khan was constantly backing up against the light punching Peterson: “Well Lamont Peterson, like I said, he just has a way of applying pressure. It’s not reckless pressure, but he just has a way. He has pretty good defense, slipping and sliding, and very elusive in the ring, and he’s very athletic and very skillful. Like I said, he got to me! He hit me with those same body shots, so I know how Khan was feeling after that fight. He came in and tried to break me down, and go to my body, and weaken me. But I persevered. I guess Khan does have guts. I think he’s going to learn a lot from this fight. It’s a reality check for him and his team. They need to humble themselves, man! It’s okay to be confident in your abilities, but like humble yourself man! This is a humbling fight for him. So I hope he learns from all of his mistakes that he’s made. It’s a fight of course, and you want to show heart, but dude! When you’re sitting on the ropes taking overhand rights, right hooks to the head, and those body shots, and you’re acting like, ‘You’re not doing nothing, you’re not doing nothing’! You got be kidding me. He’s getting to you! I think if he would have actually fought back on the ropes or even tied Lamont up and let him get off, he would have been better off man! There are a lot of things he can learn from this fight. Will he learn from it? I don’t know, but we’re going to have to see.” His views on the fact he has now regained the universal recognition as the best junior welterweight in the world without having been in the ring: “Well whether people had me on the roster one or two really didn’t matter to me. I always felt that I was number one, even when they had Khan number one with the Ring Belt championship or whatever. Was it fair? Yeah, it was fair to give him that position with the fact that I didn’t face him at that time. So you know, if he was number one I was cool with being number two. But in my heart and in my mind, I felt that I was number one anyway. I felt deep down inside that Khan couldn’t beat me. If you go and look at some of my reviews and some of my interviews on YouTube explaining about the fight, I was actually word for word on exactly what happened with how to beat Khan—and I’ve done the same thing with how to beat Manny Pacquiao. You know. You just got to get in there and do these things and you can beat these guys. I’m a student of the game. I study fighters. I watch fighters all the time. I study their habits. I know what they look to do, I know what they don’t like, and I use that to my abilities when I do fight them and I’ve been very successful doing it.” On whether he feels Amir Khan fought the wrong fight and unemployed the wrong strategy: “You know what? Khan was fighting the right fight! He was fighting the right fight, but if you look at a lot of Roach’s guys, they like to lay on those ropes man! Even Manny likes to lay on those ropes, and they have a straight up and down defense. So that’s where he lost the fight, when he allowed Lamont to get in position and land those body shots on him and sit on the ropes, instead of doing the smart veteran way and tying the guy up, or learning how to tie a guy up, and learning how to take little breathers in the ring. Khan only knows one speed man, and that’s full speed. So he’ll fight you real quick sporadically, and then he has to recharge because he throws so many friggin’ combinations. A fighter who’s elusive can get away, get away, and step inside on him. He’s going to have problems with anybody who’s elusive and able to get inside on him and work his body. Looking back, I think that he fought the right fight. He just didn’t have the gas tank and he didn’t have the mental capacity to keep the focus throughout the whole fight, because Lamont brings a lot of pressure. He didn’t have that focus to do it for the whole fight. I think the holding definitely hurt him in this fight, but I think that last point definitely hurt him big time because Khan could have won that fight! But that last point that the ref took for him—granted a lot of people said it was wrong because he was doing that, but if you go back and you watch the fight you’ll see how many times this guy warned him before he actually took that point. He warned him like three or four times before he took that point for pushing off. There’s a difference between doing a little shove, but this guy was literally like pushing him with his forearm and his elbow, pushing him off like, hard! Lamont goes and says he didn’t care about that, but he was pushing his head down as well! You know, and Lamont was like in his chest. He was at chest level when he was pushing his head down to the canvas, and that was a foul as well. So you know the ref was in there doing his job and he saw what he saw. The ref I think miscalculated that knockdown in the fight and gave Khan a knockdown when it was a slip. But hey! That’s what it is. I mean I wasn’t the ref in that fight. He did the job in there the best way he could, and that was that.” On whether he thought Peterson would be awarded the victory after the first two scorecards were read as a split with one judge favoring Khan and the other Peterson: “Yeah. Yeah! I did. I knew it was going to go his way. My wife and I were sitting home and she looked at me. She was like, ‘He’s going to lose. They’re going to take it from him’, and I was like, ‘No they’re not, no they’re not’. It’s in his backyard, man. You know. I mean where Khan and his people said it shows he’s a man, and this and that, and this and that. We’re going into another fighter’s hometown and fighting him there. That’s just arrogant. To me that’s just arrogance and stupidity. I mean that’s ridiculous. He should have never fought him in his hometown. To me they say Khan is a huge draw, then why didn’t they do it in Vegas? You know? I mean why didn’t they do it in Vegas? I mean Khan’s been there. He’s fought there many times. I feel that his promoter—his promoter basically set him up for disaster, because he brought it to Peterson’s hometown. Peterson, him and Khan, they brought a house full of people into that arena to make more money. So it backfired on them. It completely backfired on them, and now I think Khan wants a rematch in England. Peterson would be stupid to go to England and rematch him in England. You know. He would be stupid to do that. That’s not a good move. If they’re going to do a rematch, they should do it on neutral territory—Vegas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, I mean New York. Somewhere where it makes sense and it’s neutral, and there is no conflict of interest with any judges, or any conspiracies with refs, and all this stuff.”