William Zepeda’s impressive unanimous decision over Lamont Roach immediately sparked discussion about the biggest fight available at lightweight. Rather than looking toward a routine title defense, Tim Bradley believes Abdullah Mason is the opponent who makes the most sense next.
Mike Coppinger quickly identified Mason as the ideal opponent. Bradley agreed, then explained why the matchup presents difficult stylistic questions for both fighters.
“Mason has been in these types of dog fights. He has, right? And he showed me that, yo, I’m going to throw a lot of punches if I need to. I’m going get on the inside or if I can box on the outside, he can do it all. He can win in different ways,” Bradley said to The Ring. “The thing that concerns me about this fight with Zepeda, if they were to fight, is one, the pressure, the volume, but even more, it’s a southpaw versus a southpaw. That’s going to favor Zepeda because if you look at the track record of Zepeda, all the southpaws that he has faced in his career, he’s probably faced about six or seven southpaws already. He’s faced the best one yet in Shakur Stevenson. But also the punching power. When you give Mason opportunities to punch in between, man, that kid can punch. He cracks better than Zepeda.”
Bradley didn’t portray either man as a clear favorite. He praised Mason’s versatility and punching power while noting Zepeda’s experience against fellow southpaws, including Shakur Stevenson, gives the WBC champion an important edge in the matchup.
Coppinger called Zepeda against Mason the fight to make, while Shady McCoy also favored Mason. Max Kellerman declined to make an early prediction, saying he wanted more time to evaluate the matchup.
