Both boxers have plenty to prove when they step into the ring on Saturday night. Here is all the necessary fight info for fans who want to check out the action.Chaves (23-2, 19 KOs) is a rugged slugger who was disqualified from his last bout against Brandon Rios in August for an excessive amount of fouls and extracurricular activity. He needs a clean fight against Bradley to shake off any reputation of being a dirty boxer.
Bradley (31-1, 12 KOs) will be out to prove that he's not about to lose his spot in the upper echelon of welterweight boxing and relevant title discussions. He's coming off the first loss of his career, a 12-round unanimous decision that went to the great Manny Pacquiao and cost Bradley his WBO welterweight title.
Bradley vs. Chaves Fight Info
Date: Saturday, Dec. 13
Location: Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas
Time (ET): 10 p.m.
TV: HBO
Live Stream: Box Nation (subscription required, region restricted)
Odds: Bradley (-900), Chaves (+550)
Note: Odds courtesy of Odds Shark and updated as of Friday, Dec. 12 at 3 a.m. ET.
This sequence shows you what Bradley could be like if he sticks to a game plan and keep a level head, crisp technique, great defense, and good range control. His opponent, Marquez, is one of the most fearsome natural counterpunchers in boxing today, and Bradley, when he was focused, was able to avoid a lot of damage. First seeing Marquez load up on an uppercut when he ducks in close, Bradley blocks with his elbows and immediately ducks underneath Marquez's followup left hook. At the same time, he uses his recovering momentum to tag Marquez with a right cross and circle out of harms way. Knowing that Marquez will look to counter, Bradley flicks out a jab and immediately slips to the right, staying *mostly* outside of Marquez's counter left uppercut before jabbing in again and backstepping away from a counter right. Bradley was able to anticipate the counters quickly enough to react and neutralize most of Marquez's output when he kept focus. Very slick stuff.Poor Timothy Bradley. No matter how hard he fights, or how many top contenders he beats, he'll always be remembered as "that guy who was gifted Manny Pacquiao's belt in one of the worst judging mistakes of all time". Bradley may have technically lost twice to Pacquiao, but that does not take away from the fact that he is one of the best fighters at 140 and 147 pounds. Bradley was dominant at light-welterweight, and despite being an undersized when he moved up to welterweight, outworked and beat a number of top welterweights like Ruslan Provodnikov and Juan Manuel Marquez, who had just come off a career-defining, highlight reel knockout of Manny Pacquiao. Bradley can outbox lengthier opponents and brawl with bigger men, beating them at their own games to prove that he is a legitimate, top-tier fighter, and yet he is still despised by many for a controversial decision two years ago.
Diego Chaves is probably best known for being one of the victims of rising prospect Keith Thurman's warpath. The heavy-handed Argentinian was the former WBA interim welterweight beltholder and threw heavy leather with Thurman before finally succumbing to a brutal right hand after a hellish flurry against the ropes. In his most recent bout, Chaves was arguably winning against the tough Brandon Rios (he was ahead on two of three scorecards) before being disqualified in a fight that was dirtier than a hoarder's living room.Chaves alternates from using a shoulder roll shell guard and a tight high guard depending on how squared up he is relative to his opponent, but he always retreats backwards in a straight line. Lacking lateral movement makes it easier for an opponent to continue to pressure and reduce the space Chaves has to reset and counter, cutting off offensive opportunities, especially against an opponent as mobile as Timothy Bradley.
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