Timothy Bradley is one of many who feels like the new March 30 main event in Las Vegas is a short-notice upgrade.
This week, Keith Thurman withdrew from his scheduled headliner against Tim Tszyu and Sebastian Fundora stepped up from his slot on the undercard to deputise.
While Fundora said strategically not much changes in his final stages of preparations, Tszyu now faces a tall, southpaw, pressure fighter who is not in a similar mould to Thurman in any way.
“That is going to be difficult,” Bradley said, of Tszyu’s position. “He is facing a southpaw, he’s been training for an orthodox fighter in a Keith Thurman and now he has to switch his camp and looking for sparring partners that size [Fundora is almost 6ft 6in] is going to be very difficult for him.
“This is a bigger challenge, a bigger threat in my opinion, compared to Keith Thurman, who I thought was going in this fight… I didn’t have him winning this fight at all, I thought he was going to get stopped eventually by a bodyshot or something – being out of the ring for so long.”
Bradley speculated that Thurman’s biceps injury was a possible result of either age or inactivity, but he is relishing the switch.
“I am now buying this pay-per-view,” Bradley told ProBox TV.
“This is going to be a fantastic fight. You’ve got two guys, big hearts, decent skill, both guys have got punching power, coming forwards, that’s what I’m talking about. I’m talking about an explosion, and we get to see how well they deal with adversity and to change, that’s going to be on display when they face each other. I’m excited about the news. Keith Thurman, get well my man, sorry you couldn’t fight, but I think this is a better fight.”
Fundora is coming off an emphatic seventh-round stoppage loss to Brian Mendoza, who now takes Fundora’s undercard spot against Serhii Bohachuk.
The challenger is now in an unusual position of being badly-stopped in his last fight to fighting for Tszyu’s WBO title and also the vacant WBC belt in his next contest nearly a year on. Bradley contends that the time out of the ring is in Fundora’s favor.
“I think the layoff did Fundora some good,” said the Hall of Famer. “When you get knocked out like that, think about it, that brain, sometimes fighters go back into a fight and get activity and go back into training and sparring and so on that they keep reinjuring themselves. They don’t let their brain heal up, so it’s almost a year now, letting his brain heal up and come back and taking the challenge.
“I think mentally he’s going to be better in this fight for Tim Tszyu, but as far as Tim Tszyu goes, I don’t know about the style. The style match-up is going to be different for him, the reach is going to be a bit different for him, I see an advantage with his [Tszyu’s] sharpness and his preciseness, that’s where I see he has an advantage, because Fundora makes a ton of mistakes and if he didn’t tighten up on his defense he could wind up getting knocked out again by Tim Tszyu.”
While Bradley makes cases for both fighters, he wants to see what happens if Fundora is able to walk through the fire against Tszyu, as he has done in previous battles.
“Once he gets caught in that first round, and he gets caught flush and he doesn’t go anywhere? Then he believes again,” Bradley said. “The fighter starts to believe again, and that’s when a problem can start materializing for Tim Tszyu, because this kid the ‘Inferno,’ yes, he can fight on the inside, yes, he likes that type of fight, but he can also stay long and stay on the outside, if he stays discipled mentally.”