Key points:
- Tim Bradley criticises Shakur Stevenson’s pursuit of a fight with 47-year-old Manny Pacquiao
- The proposed bout would serve as a co-feature on the Fury-Joshua Cardiff card
- Stevenson holds the WBO light welterweight title and has active options in Raymond Muratalla and O’Shaquie Foster
- Pacquiao hasn’t recorded an official win since beating Keith Thurman in 2019
Tim Bradley’s fought Pacquiao himself. He’s not impressed watching Shakur chase the same name a decade and a half later, against a version of Pacquiao that isn’t the one Bradley had to deal with.
“Ain’t nobody waiting on no damn Manny Pacquiao and you to fight, boy,” Bradley said on his channel. “Y’all talking about y’all supposed to be changing boxing? This ain’t changing boxing. This downplaying and downgrading boxing.”
A name over a genuine test
Bradley fought a 33-year-old Pacquiao. Stevenson would be facing a 47-year-old with no official win since beating Keith Thurman in 2019. Bradley pointed straight at Raymond Muratalla and O’Shaquie Foster as the fights actually available to him instead – live, active, current.
The trap either result sets
Stevenson’s built on distance and output, not violence. Win it boring, and 80,000 fans who came for Fury and Joshua turn on him fast. Stop Pacquiao, and it reads as a younger man taking apart a legend well past his best. There’s no version of this that looks like what Bradley thinks Stevenson actually needs right now.