Timothy Bradley finds himself in a unfamiliar situation before his showdown with Diego Chaves, he’s heading into the fight following a loss.
Bradley suffered the first loss of his professional career in April against Manny Pacquiao in the much anticipated rematch.
If there was any doubt that Bradley would be suffering from a post-Pacquiao fight hangover when he steps into the ring at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas Saturday, he quickly put a stop to that thinking.
“When the bell rings, I officially put Pacquiao behind me, ” Bradley said after the final presser for the Chaves bout. “I’m clearheaded going into this fight, in the Pacquiao fight I really wasn’t clearheaded at all I felt like I still had a lot to prove, because of the controversy of the first fight.”
With Bradley clearly head-hunting for much of the Pacquiao fight, he didn’t fight his usual, defensive-minded style. Despite losing, Bradley explained that all of that is in the past.
“I fought as hard as I could, I mean I could go back and say I could of, should of, would of, I should of boxed, but I didn’t chose to that night to do that for whatever reason, but now it’s behind me.”
Taking the first loss of his career was tough on Bradley as it would be for any fighter, as the sting of the loss lingered around longer than any punch landed by Pacquiao that April night.
“Of course it takes you a couple of weeks, especially when you always been undefeated in your career and you finally get that defeat,” Bradley said. “In a couple of days when it finally sinks in it’s like, ‘Man I lost,’ it sucks I lost, but if you go back and look at the history of boxing, and you look at some of the best boxers who ever fought on the planet, they have loses.”
Despite the loss, Bradley feels grateful to have been in with on of the best fighters of our time, and hinted that he wouldn’t know who is truly top dog this day in age as Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather have yet to fight.
“Hey I fought against one of the best of the world, if not the best,” Bradley said. “We have yet to see who’s the best, truly the best is, until these guys fight.”
Bradley has taken his time off since the Pacquiao loss and gathered himself in preparation for Saturday night. The loss has little, if any effect on his confidence as he readies to fight the rough Chaves.
“I don’t have a doubt in my mind that I’m going to win this fight,” he said. “I’m 100 percent ready, focused. I trained three months for this fight, I don’t have no doubt in my bone, I’m ready.”
