Shawn Porter could be about to make an audacious return to the ring.
Porter is a two-time welterweight world champion, having first held the IBF title from 2013 to 2014, before a reign as WBC champion from 2018 to 2019.
He fought some of the biggest names at 147lbs over the years, including the likes of Errol Spence Jr, Adrien Broner, Paulie Malignaggi and Keith Thurman, before retiring following a stoppage loss to Terence Crawford in November 2021.
While it may be nearly five years since Porter last stepped into the ring, he has teased a potential bout with a Hall of Fame inductee, who hasn’t competed himself in over a decade.
Porter revealed the man in question whilst speaking to FightHype, saying that at some point he will get back into the ring against former two-weight world champion Tim Bradley.
“Honestly for me it’s up to that dude. If he want me to kick his ass, I’ll kick his ass. It’s the little man complex that we both have.”
“There is truly an amount of curiosity that [even though] I think we’re both past what would have happened [then], he says he will outbox me.”
“The bottom line is at some point we’ll get in the ring, we either decide on the weight class and put in the work and do it in front of everybody, or I just knock on his door and I say we do this real quick, I need you to know you can’t outbox me.”
Bradley held world honours at both 140lbs and 147lbs, notably taking part in a trilogy with Manny Pacquiao which included a controversial win for ‘Desert Storm’ back in 2012, while he also beat fighters such as Juan Manuel Marquez and Ruslan Provodnikov.
He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2023 and has now become a prominent analyst in the sport, with his playful rivalry with Porter coming after the pair began regularly working together, but whether that ever leads to a genuine fight between the two remains to be seen.
