Bradley still waiting for payoff from Pacquiao win

Timothy Bradley wasn't counting on the biggest victory of his life making him less visible.

But the reigning WBO welterweight champion hasn't been able to parlay his June 9 victory over Manny Pacquiao into a larger payday. Or any payday, for that matter.

As Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez prepare to do battle for the fourth time Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden, Bradley will be on the outside looking in, unable to get a rematch.

"Nobody really wants to fight him," Bradley's manager, Cameron Dunkin, said. "We're interested in fighting anyone, but it seems everyone wants to fight Pacquiao or Floyd (Mayweather). And that's the problem. There's Floyd Mayweather and there's Manny Pacquiao. After that, nobody seems interested in fighting someone else."

Top Rank president Todd duBoef talked to Bradley and Dunkin on Monday about options. But unless Bradley is willing to fight for significantly less money than the $5 million he earned in his controversial 12-round split-decision win over Pacquiao, it's going to be hard to get him back in the ring.

"The fact is the public was not going to support a rematch between Manny and Tim Bradley," duBoef said. "The fans are saying, 'What's the purpose?' and I can see why Tim is angry and frustrated. But we had to do what the best thing was for Manny, and that was to have him fight Marquez again."

The pay-per-view numbers back duBoef up. The Bradley-Pacquiao fight did about 900,000 PPV buys, a decent number, but not as good as the 1.4 million buys the third Pacquiao-Marquez fight did in November 2011.

HBO Pay Per View, which did the June 9 fight and is doing Saturday's fight, probably wasn't going to support a Pacquiao-Bradley rematch. At least not right away.

"They weren't interested," Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said. "It would have been a very tough sell doing a rematch immediately. People weren't going to buy that fight."

There were discussions of Bradley meeting Lamont Peterson on Dec. 15 in Miami in a rematch of their Dec. 12, 2009, fight. But Bradley didn't want to do a second fight with Peterson after winning an easy 12-round unanimous decision in their first fight.

The earliest Bradley will likely get back in the ring is February. The question is, against whom? DuBoef would like to pit Bradley against Mike Alvarado, who was sensational in his hard-fought seventh-round technical knockout loss to Brandon Rios on Oct. 13.

Bradley wants Rios, but Rios may be unavailable, as he could be the next opponent for whoever wins Saturday's Pacquiao-Marquez fight.

A fight with Robert Guerrero might be intriguing, but it is also unlikely, given Guerrero is promoted by rival company Golden Boy Promotions and there may be too much bad blood between Arum and Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer to make that fight.

Besides, Guerrero is on record saying he wants to fight Mayweather in May, and negotiations to make that fight are already under way.

"We've got to find a way to keep Tim active and relevant," Dunkin said. "He may not be able to fight Manny right away. But if we can get him back in the ring, have him win and look impressive, maybe down the road he gets another shot at Manny and is back on pay-per-view.

"But it's hard to ask him to stay patient. He's very frustrated, and I don't blame him."

■ NOTES - Pacquiao's and Marquez's official arrivals at the MGM Grand lobby today are open to the public. Marquez arrives at noon, Pacquiao at 12:30 p.m. ... Pacquiao remains a minus-370 favorite at the MGM Resorts sports books. The takeback on Marquez is plus-280.

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj.