Bradley Calls Marquez The Best Fighter He Will Face To Date

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“He’s the best fighter I ever faced,” stated Tim Bradley on his media conference call this afternoon with the media. To me it was a very bold statement being that Tim Bradley has faced so many of the best fighters from the 140 and 147 lb. divisions, which include Junior Witter, Lamont Peterson, Kendall Holt, Devon Alexander, Luis Abregu, and the great Manny Pacquiao.

Pacquiao and Marquez have fought 4 times with Pacquiao besting Marquez two times to one with one draw in all very close fights. But Marquez’ “one” was a one punch knocking sending Manny Pacquiao into a deep sleep. I posed the question to Bradley if that one punch surpasses all that Manny Pacquiao has done to call Marquez the best fighter he’s ever faced. “It certainly has a lot to do with it but I mean they had close fights and he (Marquez)  could have won all of them. Three years ago I probably tell you the same thing; he’s been in there with Barrera, Pacquiao, Chris John, Casamayor, and Floyd Mayweather.  He’s faced the best guys at every weight division and now he’s facing me, another top guy. He’s so smart in the ring and still one of the best counter punchers in the game, so yes, he’s probably the best fighter in terms of skill and resume that I will have faced to date,” explained Bradley.

Marquez’ one punch knockout of Pacquiao have some people saying that he’s all wrong for Bradley especially after his brutal war with Ruslan Provodnikov but Bradley is confident he’ll be able to take Marquez’ best punch because of the sparring in camp.

“It all started with sparring Lucas Matthysse. He was about 10 days out from fighting Garcia and he was in top shape and I was just about to start camp. As soon as he hit me I was like ‘oh boy, this a bad ass man right here’. But I took his shots landed my own and it was good work. My confidence in camp built up with hard sparring and from then I could tell I’ve recovered fully from Provodnikov and I’m ready to go and beat Marquez’ ass.”

This fight between the two was in jeopardy because the two men disagreed on how the anti-doping testing should be done. Bradley wanted VADA while Marquez wanted USADA. The end game was Bradley used VADA while Marquez chose to do  Nevada testing using WADA protocol. Bradley says he’s had to move passed that.

“I wanted VADA because VADA is the best. I still don’t understand why he didn’t want to do the testing but it is what it is. If I back down from the fight, I lose money and an HBO date but at the end of the day it’s not going to matter, I’m a just beat him and that’s it.”

His trainer Joel Diaz agrees even though he has been in the media stating that his promoter Top Rank, would prefer if Marquez won instead of Bradley. With the recent run of bad judging in September, I asked Joel if that at all worried him and if he needed a shutout type of performance to get the nod on the judges’ card. Diaz responded by saying, “It’s not going to matter because it’s not going to the judges. Tim is going to beat Marquez and stop him and leave the judges out of it.”