Timothy "Desert Storm" Bradley Jr. has now won two straight times after flooring Brandon Rios at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas last Saturday to defend his World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight title.
The knockout (KO) win was also a first for Bradley under trainer Teddy Atlas who, according to a report by ESPN, was convinced by the champion to leave retirement and start working with him back in August.
"We had seven weeks together. I wonder what a year would do. I wonder what two years would bring," Bradley said of him working with Atlas, according to ESPN.
He added, "I got a knockout win against a great [former lightweight] champion in Brandon Rios, who is tough and gritty. The sky is the limit from me. Teddy said he's coming back for my next training camp."
Bradley (33–1–1, 13 KOs) had control for the majority of the fight and scored more landed punches than Rios (33–3–1, 24 KOs) did in the earlier rounds before the ninth round finish that saw the challenger hit the deck twice.
In the stats provided by CompuBox, Bradley landed 254 of 570 punches thrown (45 percent) while Rios was successful in only 81 of 454 thrown (18 percent).
Following the fight, Rios, made his decision to leave the sport and said, according to ESPN, "My body is not the same no more. I've been in a lot of wars. I think it's time to hang it up. I'm done. It's been a great run."
Now, because of the huge win, Bradley might be set to have a rubber match with the retiring Manny Pacquiao.
In a report by the Los Angeles Times, Top Rank's Bob Arum who was impressed with Bradley's performance against Rios, said Pacquiao will now be watching the tape of the fight and also the tape of Terence Crawford's fight to decide on whom he will face in his swan song next year.
Pacquiao and Bradley already met twice, with the American winning the first match in a controversial split decision ruling and the Filipino avenging the loss in the second meeting with a unanimous decision win.
