TIMOTHY BRADLEY shot to prominence in 2008 with a good victory over Britain’s WBC light-welterweight champion Junior Witter, dropping the awkward switch-hitter along the way.

I remember when the fight was made, I knew of Bradley, had seen bits of him on his way through, and thought (along with several friends in the states) that the opportunity had come along a year or two too early for the American. He was a very good prospect, but maybe didn’t quite know enough in order to beat such a wily opponent that plays with your mind as well as throws unorthodox punches. The fact that the fight was in the UK added to the difficulty of Bradley’s task.

But come fight time, Bradley proved he was more than ready as he showed a fantastic brain, and great temperament to beat Witter in front of Witter’s own fans.

That fight launched Bradley into the big picture, WBC champion in a red-hot division. After his first defence against the dangerous Edner Cherry he took on the WBO champion Kendall Holt in a unification bout. Holt was coming off a stunning one-round KO of the big-punching Ricardo Torres to win the title, and had then inflicted the only defeat on Demetrius Hopkins record in his first defence.

Bradley again showed he’s ready for the big occasion as he beat Holt comfortably by unanimous decision to become unified champion.

Fast forward just over a year and he’s now viewed as No. 1 in a division where the other champions are Amir Khan and Devon Alexander. Add to the mix Marcos Maidana and Victor Ortiz and you see there are some great match-ups. But would Bradley come out on top when it comes to the division’s current champs?

A fight with either Khan or Alexander would be great. To be honest, the three of them like to use their brains and outwit their opponents so they would more than likely be great technical fights rather than full-on, blood-pumping action-fests.

Khan I believe would look to keep things long and use his successful hit-and-move tactics against Bradley who I feel would be the aggressor in the fight.

The thing about Bradley though is that he can mix it up. He can sit back and box, he can come forward and fight. Although I think Khan’s speed causes problems early doors, I think the brain of Bradley, the traps he will look to set and the speed of his own punches will help him take over in the second half of the fight where he could well end up stopping Khan late on. Stoppage or not, I think Bradley has enough to negate the speed of Khan and wins this one.

Devon Alexander has the style to cause anybody problems –he’s a very slippery southpaw with lightning-fast hands and it looks as though his power is improving all the time as he hurt Junior Witter several times and forced the former champion to quit on his stool after eight rounds.

However, Devon’s next fight, a unification against the formidable and teak-tough Juan Urango, was a stunner. Urango had given Ricky Hatton a good fight and gone the distance with welterweight star Andre Berto but was taken out by a fantastic Alexander uppercut that totally scattered his senses and dropped him in a heap. Somehow Urango managed to get up from that one, but Alexander nailed him again and the fight was all over in the eighth.

Alexander against Bradley for me is a fight that could go either way. Too tough to call as both have the arsenal to beat each other and it’s a genuine 50-50 pick-em fight.

It’s great that we have two guys at the top like these two, it reminds me of the old days in the sense that when you paired up several fighters, any one of them could beat the other on a given day. The same applies to these two, if the fights get made we could see them in a trilogy as both men can win the first match-up and the rematches could go the opposite way. I for one hope we get to see it pan out that way.