Timothy Bradley Hoping He's Not Out of the Pacquiao Sweepstakes

With all the focus being given to a fourth fight with Juan Manuel Marquez or a remaining outside shot he'll fight Floyd Mayweather Jr if he forces Top Rank to make the fight, Manny Pacquiao's other supposed "next opponent" is hoping he's still in the running. Timothy Bradley spoke with RingTV.com about his win over Joel Casamayor, and his hope that he still lands Pacquiao next.

"The pound-for-pound best, Manny Pacquiao. That's who I want to fight. I'm ready. Marquez just showed it. I've got a plan for every fighter out there," said Bradley.

"I've got the speed to compete with Manny Pacquiao. I've got the determination. I would love to fight that guy. Definitely. Footspeed, handspeed, I go to the body well. Bring it on."

Bradley (28-0, 12 KO) is doing his best to convince people that his win over Joel Casamayor was difficult or anything more than a stay-busy fight, but that's probably a lost cause. Bradley is describing a fight with the old lightweight champion Casamayor, not the 40-year-old, out of shape version that was in the ring on Saturday.

But as we've noted, it's not Bradley's fault that was his matchup, and he frankly deserved better. All he could do on Saturday was go out and do his job, and he did that, dominating Casamayor while hardly breaking a sweat. When you read between the lines of Bradley's fight description, you notice that the most difficulty he can hype out of the bout was that Casamayor held him a lot. That says enough.

Bradley was also enthused to fight in front of the crowd of 15,498 in Las Vegas:

"It was awesome being in front of this huge crowd, man. I just stayed in a zone and didn't want to look out into the crowd and see all of the people and get shell-shocked. It was a lot of fun and I want to do it again."

While promoted by Gary Shaw and Thompson Boxing, it became essentially a running joke that Bradley's fights were sparsely-attended at the Agua Caliente Casino in Rancho Mirage, Calif., and his utter flop as a gate attraction at the Silverdome outside of Detroit earlier this year with Devon Alexander remains a go-to gag when noting fights where nobody showed up to watch. The only time in his career that Bradley had fought in front of a crowd that reflected his ability came in May 2008, when he traveled to Nottingham to face and defeat Junior Witter.

As for fighting Pacquiao next, Bradley is the third option. For now, Top Rank and Pacquiao seem to want to make the Marquez fight, but Marquez is seriously considering retiring from the sport on a high note. If they can't get Marquez, negotiations with Mayweather could actually happen, and who knows? But if neither of those work out, I'd expect Timothy Bradley to be Pacquiao's next opponent. He may be the third option, but of the three he's the guy with whom they'll have zero difficulty making the fight happen.