By Geoff “The Professor” Poundes

These days the lines between boxing’s weight divisions are becoming increasingly blurred. With the proliferation of mini’s and junior’s, light’s and super’s, all designed as usual to give the governing bodies more title-fights to tack a sanctioning fee to, a fighter’s poundage has become as elastic as Antonio Margarito’s morals.

In some cases all this has meant is that an undisciplined fighter can still function without getting himself into any kind of shape, like James Toney. Or a fighter can earn a huge payday by boiling himself down to a husk to take on the man of the moment, like Oscar De La Hoya. Or a very skilled fighter can put on a few pounds and make heavier men look silly, like Manny Pacquiao.

Of course in the old days fighters pretty much stayed put at a certain weight until old age and a gathering midriff forced them up the divisions. Some flourished, but most, in truth, perished – prompting the age-old adage: “A good big man always beats a good littl’un”.

Pugilists like Bob Fitzsimmons, Henry Armstrong, Georges Carpentier and the two Sugar Ray’s were rarities: prodigiously talented fighters who knew enough between the ropes to make “light” of a size disparity, if you’ll pardon the pun.

It’s no longer enough to be the best at any given weight. You’ll only get your due after you’ve leapt out of your comfort zone. Everyone’s pound for pound candidates are the weight-jumpers: Pacquiao/Mayweather/Hopkins/ Darchinyan. Paul Williams and Arthur Abraham are only getting their just due now that they’re moving up. Kelly Pavlik tried to fight 10 pounds above his weight, got knocked back, and is now down the pound for pound ratings

Perhaps that’s why Timothy Bradley, 25-0, 11 KO’s, the WBO Light-Welterweight Champion, doesn’t feature in any pound for pounds lists (BoxRec has him at 24, behind the Klitschko’s would you believe). Bradley hit world class in May 2008, when he out-boxed the highly capable Junior Witter to take the WBC light-welterweight title, and he’s remained a 140 pound fighter in each of his four outings since.

There’s been a whirlwind of activity in and around Bradley’s division since he became world champion. Ricky Hatton gave way to Manny Pacquiao (but the Hitman is back looking for a fight), Amir Khan has taken the WBA title, Devon Alexander and Juan Urango have become WBC and IBF champs, and are due to marry those titles together when they fight in a couple of weeks.

Juan Manuel Marquez remains in the picture, and Edwin Valero, the knockout artist, is knocking on the light-welterweight door. Seven pounds up and the picture is filled with explosive talent: Paul Williams is threatening to come
back down, Manny Pacquiao, Joshua Clottey, Floyd Mayweather, JR., and Shane Mosley are fighting each other, with Andre Berto and Marcos Maidana waiting in the wings.

It’s an exciting picture, and the prospective matchups are mouth-watering, and yet, in all the discussions, it’s Timothy Bradley’s name that invariably gets left out.

Part of the reason for that is that Tim is no salesman, but a much bigger part of it is that he’s an exceptionally talented fighter, with few recognizable flaws for these better-known boxers to latch on to. This lack of box-office appeal, coupled with some awesome talent, puts Bradley at the back of the queue for the big paydays.

There’s been talk of a Valero fight, and this week Gary Shaw, Bradley’s promoter, has had crossed words with Bob Arum (Valero’s advocate), where they’ve both blamed each other for failing to tie down the details of a match. Over in England Frank Warren, Amir Khan’s ditched promoter, insists he’d signed Bradley to a fight with the young Briton in the UK, only for Khan to think better of it and decamp to the US with Golden Boy and a much easier night with feather-punching Paulie Malignaggi.

Malignaggi is rated number one by the WBO, yet even he has opted to take the more lucrative (and more winnable) fight with Khan. Even his challengers seem uninterested in a fight with the champion.

Which brings us back to the modern day phenomenon of weightlessness. At 5 feet 6 inches tall, Bradley has never weighed more than 146 in a fight, early in his career, and he’s a smallish light-welter. He’s only stopped 11 opponents, so he’s nothing more than a moderately powerful puncher at the weight. However, to get his just due, and the big paydays, he’s almost certainly going to have to move to welterweight.

He’ll be chastened by Ricky Hatton’s forays amongst the bigger men. A monster at 140, Hatton could bully opponents around a ring and make his strength count, but up at 147 he was bullied himself at times by Luis Collazo and Floyd Mayweather. Bradley is a far slicker fighter than Ricky, and will out-speed and out-think many bigger men, but he won’t have the power to shift them.

In a perfect world Bradley would be permitted to stay at 140, compile 15 to 20 defenses and go down in history as an all-time great. But in this day and age, that’s not possible. Joe Calzaghe and Bernard Hopkins put together 20-odd defenses of their respective titles, but didn’t get any credit until they started taking on heavier men. Chad Dawson and Kelly Pavlik look like the best light-heavy and middleweight of their era, able to settle into a long run as champions, but is anyone really interested?

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