If you caught last night’s showdown between Brandon Rios and Timothy Bradley, you were greeted by a drubbing of an ill-prepared Rios for nine rounds. Apparently blowing up to 170 pounds from the weigh-in to the actual fight and then proceeding to get pummeled for an entire fight was enough to push Rios into announcing his retirement after the fight. But perhaps there was something else.
Rios and Bradley were far from the highlights of the fight. That honor belongs to ESPN analyst and current Bradley trainer Teddy Atlas, a student of the legendary Cus D’Amato who came in to the Bradley camp just seven weeks ago. That seemed to be enough to make a connection, one that shined well-before Bradley entered the home stretch of the fight thanks to this spirited talk in the corner between rounds.
As HBO’s Jim Lampley noted, it was almost like a football pep-talk or something from Rocky. In fact, you likely wouldn’t be surprised to find that the entire thing is just viral marketing for Creed before its release later this month. And if it is, job done. If you don’t feel like you could take on the world for at least one second while watching this, your spirit is gone. Or maybe you’re just trying to figure out where Teddy is going with all of this.
