Airing now on Showtime Extreme: Timothy Bradley vs. Junior Witter - May 10, 2008

:yep

Boxing Prospect beat ya to it.

I'm sure he isn't the first person to ever make the crack (although Ciminale's record, like I pointed out earlier, is actually fairly decent/consistent outside Bradley vs. Witter) but he was the first ITT:

 

Same here. I was pretty high on Witter back then, not that I enjoyed watching him necessarily but respected his ring savvy and spoiling ability - kind of the same grudging respect that guys like Abril or Mora get for hideous trickiness & effectiveness - and like everybody else I was wowed by the dominance and KO of Harris, hyped at the time as he was even with a couple of prior defeats.

People will claim otherwise now, but many - including myself, admittedly - were starting to buy the idea that Witter both deserved a shot at Hatton and belonged in the ring with him around when Bradley scuttled those plans. That was probably the closest Witter had ever been to landing his dream match, and I really think a win over Bradley/Castillo (either a "hungry young lion" Yank with an unbeaten record, or a big name in JLC, who also would've provided a recent common opponent with Hatton to help sell it) could have brought the demand to a boil that Hatton wouldn't be able to ignore, man of the people that he was.

It may sound kind of silly in retrospect, given the difference in greatness between their careers and the fact that Witter, even when stopping foes, was never exactly a joy to watch - but this was for a time brewing as the UK superfight, and by mid-2008 was gaining more and more credence as Witter kept the ball rolling - until Bradley punted it clear into the grandstands.



I went immediately from not holding Bradley in much regard to, by the end of 2008, already considering him the man at 140lbs (http://www.boxingforum24.com/showthread.php?t=106132) - for which I took no small amount of flack but stand by. :good

 

:think I think I've caught every Bradley fight since (twelve of them, and thirteen including Witter - as long a streak as possible, since Bradley-Vázquez wasn't televised) live, and paid for a couple that were PPV (Bradley has been featured on four, headlining in three)

 

Anyone claiming they have seen Tim Bradley vs. Miguel Vázquez, by the way, is probably lying to you.

It was the main event of a non-televised card seen by a crowd of roughly 2,000.

By ringside accounts, the wide scoring in favor of the Californian was on the up-and-up, fair and reflected what happened. By contrast, there are questions as to whether Canelo Alvarez deserved either of his decisions over Vázquez.