Tim Bradley is on screen for thirty-one seconds in this AKHi TV video. He does not pick a winner, he does not break down rounds — he does something more damaging. He explains an absence. Foster’s skill set, Bradley says, is rare: he is something like a Crawford, a chameleon who can adapt to anything inside the ring. Then the line: now you see why Shakur Stevenson didn’t want no action. And Tank Davis, Bradley added, is not going to want any of it either.
The other nine minutes belong to the AKHi host, and he builds the case Bradley pointed at. Per the host, Shakur promised Foster a fight if Foster beat his best friend Ray Ford — then, after Foster did exactly that in front of him, called Foster a bum and did not keep his word. After the Navarrete win, the same Shakur suddenly calls Foster a great fighter. The host’s summary of the pattern is brutal in its simplicity: Devin Haney at 147 was too big; Foster at 130 was too small.
The host put his own pound-for-pound list where his mouth is — these are the host’s rankings, not Bradley’s. Shakur comes off his No. 1 spot; Foster was already his No. 9 before the Navarrete fight, and Navarrete was a top-10 pound-for-pound fighter on the industry lists, so the win should move Foster up everywhere. Keyshawn Davis drops off his No. 10 spot, replaced by Abdullah Mason, for the same reason: not taking the hard fights in front of him.
The host also noted the measurements nobody at 130 wants to hear: Foster’s 74-inch reach against what he believes is Shakur’s 69 — a five-inch gap — in a fighter who works at every range and switches southpaw. Maybe that is why Shakur’s current position, per the host, is that he will see Foster after the undisputed run. Foster, meanwhile, may not need him at all: Lomachenko is at his door and Bob Arum had the two shake hands on next year. Thirty-one seconds from Bradley, and the whole division’s story got told: the man taking every fight is the man the others explain themselves around.
Video credit: AKHi TV.
