Pacquiao vs Marquez Undercard: Arum Says He Tried to Get Marcos Maidana for Timothy Bradley

Top Rank chief Bob Arum says he's not concerned about the criticism of the Timothy Bradley vs Joel Casamayor fight, and that he tried to land a bigger fish but was unsuccessful. From Dan Rafael:

"Who cares what they say," Arum said. "We thought it was a good fight for Tim given the layoff. We went to [Golden Boy's Richard] Schaefer to see if we could get [Marcos] Maidana and [Schaefer] wasn't interested. I don't blame him. He probably has other guys to match him with. But we tried."

All things considered, Bradley will have been out of the ring for about 10 months when he fights on November 12, which isn't that long of a layoff, but whatever.

Another concern, though, is that the fight is intended to be a showcase, and while Casamayor, 40, is definitely on his very last legs as a fighter, he still knows all the tricks and can ugly up a fight with the best of them. Given that Bradley isn't known for his action fights in the first place, this might have been the rare poor choice by the Top Rank matchmakers in terms of making a fighter look good.

As for Maidana, that was of course never really an option. Bradley vs Maidana is, for one thing, an HBO main event by itself, and I'm sure both Arum and Schaefer would prefer to make the most money possible on that fight if they were going to do it. Arum might well have asked about the fight, but I'm sure he never suspected it would happen.

But then of course there's the question of why he would ask for Maidana, but then excuse the poor choice of Casamayor as fitting for a fighter on a layoff. Maidana is a highly-ranked contender. If that was a possible choice, why not try to get Lucas Matthysse or someone else who is an actual contender? Why the drastic drop down in relevance to the old Casamayor after not landing Maidana?

Bradley still holds the WBO junior welterweight title, and it will be on the line as Casamayor is somehow the No. 10 contender in the WBO rankings. But then this is the WBO, where Mike Alvarado is a ranked welterweight even though his last three fights have been at 140 pounds.