Timothy Bradley shines during big night of boxing

In a battle between two of America’s best fighters before an enthusiastic crowd in Rancho Mirage, CA, undefeated WBO junior welterweight champion Timothy Bradley showed he may now deserve to be mentioned among the best boxers in the world. Although he had to fight his good friend, undefeated Lamont Peterson, the champion showed no mercy in the ring over twelve rounds.

It was apparent in the first two frames that Timothy Bradley simply had a lot more tools than the challenger as he used speed, excellent movement and combinations to completely throw off the rhythm of Peterson, who seemed a bit mystified as to how he should go about slowing the champion down. In the third round, Bradley landed a hard, looping right hand behind the left ear of Lamont Peterson which dropped the challenger. Amazingly, when Bradley tried to follow-up and test him, Peterson had one of his best moments in the fight by digging tremendous shots to the body one after the other.

In between rounds, Timothy Bradley was advised to stop engaging Peterson on the inside and giving him opportunities to go to the body and really from the fourth round on he followed that advice, completely neutralizing his friend’s greatest strength. Despite the fact Lamont Peterson never gave up and constantly pressed forward, he never got to Bradley with any kind of consistency, as the champion used his legs and repeatedly peppered the challenger with hard punches to the body and head throughout. In the end, the official judges scored it a lopsided decision victory in favor of Timothy Bradley, as he raised his record to twenty-five victories without a defeat. As for Peterson, he drops to twenty-seven wins and one loss. The official scores were 118-110, 119-108 and 120-107.

On a separate fight card in Chicago, junior welterweight standout Paulie “The Magic Man” Malignaggi was out for revenge in a rematch against former lightweight champion Juan Diaz, and he got it by using superior leg movement and faster hands. Malignaggi was in complete control, consistently beating Diaz to the punch and making him look awkward. Juan Diaz just simply could not effectively close the distance and do any real damage on the constantly moving Malignaggi. All three judges had the fight scored the same over twelve rounds, 116-111 in favor of Paulie Malignaggi, as he improves his record to twenty-seven victories with three losses. As for Juan Diaz, he has now lost three of his last five fights and falls to thirty-five wins and three defeats.

From Berne, Switzerland, Vitali Klitschko easily defended his heavyweight championship by shutting out a very passive and previously undefeated Kevin Johnson. While Johnson rolled with the punches well and displayed good defensive technique over the twelve round bout, he seldom ever threw any punches. The American seemed very content to not take any chances in the biggest moment of his professional career, and as a result he lost every round of a very boring fight. Actually one of the three judges displayed some graciousness and gave the challenger one round on his scorecard. Klitschko improved to thirty-nine victories against two defeats, while Kevin Johnson slides to 22 wins, one loss and a draw.