Timothy Bradley Jr. vs. Ruslan Provodnikov - Saturday night fight/chat thread

[IamInuit]

Provodnikov won this . I had it 114-113

Lol

[Spicoli]

Provodnikov won this . I had it 114-113

Lol

And you had ?

[J_C]

113-113 draw on my card. 7-5 Bradley with knockdown pts for Prov in the 1st and 12th.

I wonder if the judges scored the 1st round 10-8? If they didnt then Provodnikov got robbed of a Draw cos it was definitely a knockdown.

[IamInuit]

Provodnikov won this . I had it 114-113

Lol

And you had ?

It was not an insult to the poster. Quite the opposite.

[Gandalf]

I haven't read through the thread, but thought Bradley won it by a good 2 or 3 points. He started appallingly, but outworked his man throughout most of the fight, and was landing at will. I probably would have given a KD, but as things stand it just wasn't called. It was a bit poor as Bradley was all over the place with the chicken dance routine and a goofy smile on his face.

I was shocked at how Bradley was fighting in the early going, it was just way too carefree and sloppy and for a man with the output and skills he has, there was just no need to be slugging as the fighter without any real pop. He was rocked in the first and all over the place in the second. It was almost as though he had rented a chin and guard from a latter day Ricky Hatton. Sure it was exciting, but you don't come out fighting like that. You measure your opponent first.

Bradley at times looked really good. His output was great and I really liked some of those combinations. His versatility was also on show and he showed that he could take rounds without getting touched if he really concentrated. Sometimes he would work close, at others at range and it was fun to watch that.

So Bradley is way up on the cards and cruising to a boxing decision and then reverts back to the early fight persona again. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and was glad that he finally took the knee to buy some time. Bradley is usually very clever and over a little time outthinks his opponent, but here he put himself in an early hole and there really appeared to be no method early on. He was fighting like a carefree idiot. He was almost asking to be KTFO.

Tim Bradley is the black Joe Calzaghe in that he doesn't know how to lose and will always find a way, but this one was a little bit too much. Top PFP fighters simply do not allow themselves to be tagged 35 times in a round. That is silly. Great for the crowd, but WTF are you doing? Your chin looks like china, you don't have pop and you are trading like that? That is beyond sloppy and into the realm of insanity.

Listening to Bradley speak after the fight there is little doubt that he was concussed early on and it might explain his response to the Zab Judah boogie. He sounded drunk and half his face was mutating into that of John Merrick. Lest we forget, this was meant to be a tuneup fight to make him look good. Instead we got a bit of a struggle against someone who really wasn't on anyone's radar.

Bradley will watch the tapes and won't like what he sees. He clearly won the fight, but the man who stole the headlines was Provodnikov. The 9 rounds of relatively decent, but at times sloppy boxing, will be overshadowed by 3 rounds in which Bradley was getting a bit of a pumelling.

[Kirkland Laing]

Both guys need an MRI. Working HBO link please?

[Gandalf]

I think there needs to be a rematch too. Personally I think Bradley was put down twice and finished the fight as more hurt than his opponent was. There are question marks. It was a fan friendly fight, I am sure the demand is there, and I am sure both men will believe that they can do a lot more. For Bradley's own sake, I think he needs to give a rematch. It is a little like Barrera/Juarez. Bradley needs to put on a boxing clinic and show the others that is was just a bit of an off day.