Timothy Bradley's Place in Boxing History Hinges on Fight with Manny Pacquiao

Timothy Bradley wants to beat Manny Pacquiao for all of the predictable reasons.

He’s a competitive guy. It’ll lead to a few more high-end fights, along with the purses that come with them. When it comes to a post-fight meal on the Las Vegas strip, a big porterhouse steak goes down a whole lot better with a victory rather than a defeat.

But there’s something else, too. And it goes way beyond the Californian’s real-time career arc.

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“I truly do want to be remembered,” he told Bleacher Report. “Not just as a fighter. I want to be remembered as a legendary fighter. That is important to me. I want to live on.”

Now 32 and a pro for 12 years, Bradley’s steps toward a Canastota bust already include title belts in two weight classes, wins in all but three of 36 fights (one was a no-contest) and a line in the official record book that claims he defeated Pacquiao—himself a champion in seven weight classes—on the scorecards in June 2012.

Still, when push comes to shove, he concedes that the stench surrounding the decision—which Boxing Scene, among many others, labeled the worst of that year—necessitates a full validation of the victory.

And only with that, he says, will come the immortality he’ll enjoy long after fight-night memories fade.

“I honestly feel that him being a legend and him being a superstar, an icon, I feel truly that he is the guy that I definitely need to beat convincingly,” Bradley said. “Not to be in the Hall of Fame, but to be talked about and remembered for years. Because anytime they mention Manny Pacquiao’s name, they are going to have to mention Timothy Bradley’s name.”

Right up there with Erik Morales, Juan Manuel Marquez and Floyd Mayweather Jr., the only others who’ve beaten the Filipino even once since he began his televised superstar ascent 15 years ago.

If things go well enough Saturday at 9 p.m. ET on HBO pay-per-view, Bradley will have officially beaten him twice. Doing so once with no controversy would be good enough.

“That is what at the end of the day it boils down to for me,” he said. “When I say 'legacy,' I mean that’s what it is—a significant win, a no-doubt-in-my-mind win against Manny Pacquiao. That way, people can add me to the list of guys that defeated Manny Pacquiao in his awesome career. That’s the reason why I’m doing the third fight.”

For career context, Pacquiao is already one of 11 world champions over whom Bradley has a win, stretching back to a 10-rounder over future lightweight claimant Miguel Vazquez in July 2007.

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He defeated Junior Witter to win his first share of the 140-pound kingdom 10 months later in the United Kingdom and has since beaten Kendall Holt, Lamont Peterson, Devon Alexander, Joel Casamayor, Pacquiao, Ruslan Provodnikov, Juan Manuel Marquez, Jessie Vargas and Brandon Rios—all in title bouts.

But the Rios fight last November was Bradley’s first under the training auspices of veteran Teddy Atlas, to whom he gives nearly all the credit for what he perceives as a complete career resurrection. Despite the successful chapters Bradley had written long before the new regime took over, he considers Atlas’ tutelage as the propulsion to a level of accomplishment he’d never been able to reach.

Forget Fighter of the Year awards. He's looking to make his mark on a generational scale.

“I just needed the right tools to get to that next level, and I think that I will have them now. I truly do think that I have them now,” Bradley said. “I’m very confident in this fight. Every fight I’m confident. Every single fight. I think I am more prepared now than ever before. More prepared now for everything that Manny Pacquiao does now. I think I have more confidence and more self-belief than ever before going into this third fight. And that comes from Teddy, it does, it truly does.”