Timothy Bradley likely to return February 9 on HBO

RingTV.com reports that Timothy Bradley will likely return to the ring on February 9 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, televised by HBO, on a fight card that would go head-to-head with Showtime's Danny Garcia vs Zab Judah bill.

Manager Cameron Dunkin has this:

"Tim's doing good. I talked to him a long time the other day. He's happy. He said that he's ready to go. So he's going to fight on Feb. 9, and we're going to talk about it today."

Bradley (29-0, 12 KO) is coming off of a win few felt he deserved over Manny Pacquiao on June 9, and after considering his options, decided to pass on a possible December 15 fight, instead sitting out two more months. But there is little belief that Bradley will be in line to face Pacquiao again next, which many believe is what he was waiting for.

Most of the welterweight division's top fighters are tied up with Golden Boy Promotions, and Bradley's promoters at Top Rank are in no rush to work with them (and vice versa). Two possible opponents for a Bradley fight in recent times have been junior welterweights Mike Alvarado and Ruslan Provodnikov, but Bradley said a couple of weeks ago that he wasn't really interested in Alvarado, and hasn't said much about the Provodnikov idea and Provodnikov is booked to headline Friday Night Fights on January 25, too.

A potential move back to 140 wouldn't help the situation much, either, as Top Rank doesn't have many notable names in that division available for February.

The thing is, though, and I think they understand this on his team, Bradley has to get back into the ring. I don't think absence has made the heart grow fonder in his case; he's simply being forgotten, and he needs to fight.