Key points:
- Tim Bradley has withdrawn his accusation that Gary Antuanne Russell ducked a fight with Shakur Stevenson
- Bradley originally claimed Russell turned down a $2 million offer to face Stevenson
- Russell is reportedly seeking a similar payday against the winner of Alberto Puello vs Dalton Smith instead
- Bradley still wants the Stevenson fight made, but accepts his original verdict ran ahead of the facts
Tim Bradley called it ducking first and asked questions later. Once Russell’s actual alternative came into view, Bradley did something not every pundit bothers to do: he walked it back.
“Yeah, I called him a duck,” Bradley said on his channel. “But from the looks of it, Gary Antuanne Russell, nah, this is a very strategic move by him at this moment.” Bradley’s original claim centred on a reported $2 million offer to face Shakur Stevenson, which Russell’s brother and former featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr. publicly disputed at the time.
The number that changed his mind
Bradley says he’s since heard Russell expects a comparable payday facing the winner of Alberto Puello against Dalton Smith instead, a fight that also keeps him out of the ring until the outcome of that bout is known. If the money genuinely matches, turning down Stevenson stops looking like fear and starts looking like ordinary business.
Why he still isn’t fully satisfied
Bradley’s remaining complaint is about opportunity cost, not integrity. He argues a loss to Stevenson would do less damage to Russell’s reputation than losing to Puello or Smith, since the bigger name offers a more forgivable defeat. That’s a matter of opinion dressed up as certainty, and it doesn’t erase the fact that Russell’s explanation, if accurate, is a perfectly reasonable one.