Timothy Bradley says he will sign for Devon Alexander bout
WBO junior welterweight champion Timothy Bradley, considered the top of his division, has confirmed that he will sign on for a January 29 HBO-televised bout against IBF/WBC titlist Devon Alexander.
"I've got the contract, and I'm going to be signing it over the next couple of days. Finally, now everything is pretty much ready. I'm happy about this fight. Even though I feel like I'm taking this fight on short money, I still want this fight," Bradley said.
Though Bradley (26-0, 11 KOs) has yet to sign for the fight with promoter Gary Shaw, Devon Alexander (21-0, 13 KOs) signed on weeks ago with promoter Don King. That move proved to be problematic, though, when in recent days the IBF contacted Alexander with
purse bid results for a mandatory bout with IBF No.1 contender Kaizer Mabuza.
According to the IBF, they went through with a Mabuza-Alexander purse bid on September 28 because they had not heard from Bradley’s camp about the prospective January 29 fight with Alexander. Shaw, Bradley’s promoter, denies this information and says that
he contacted the IBF and declared Bradley would participate in an Alexander bout before the deadline.
IBF chairman Lindsay Tucker explained the turn of events: “Under the IBF rules, a unification [bout] takes precedent over the mandatory, so Alexander could have fought Bradley before the date of the purse bid. We gave Alexander from Aug. 9 until the purse
bid date, which was Sept. 28, and we never got sufficient proof that the fight with Bradley was going to happen," Tucker plead. “So we went to the purse bid, so now, you can't come back and say that you want to do a unification.”
In the event that Alexander decides to move onward with a fight against Bradley, that will undoubtedly rake in more revenue that a bout with Mabuza, he will be stripped of his IBF title for failing to heed their directives.
Bradley believes that Alexander will give up the title for a match with him. He confirmed that he really wants the fight, and that he believes he will “smash” Alexander. “I definitely have something to say to Devon Alexander, and that's that he had better
be ready,” Bradley huffed. “I mean, he really had better be ready, because I'm coming, and, basically, I'm going to smash him.”
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