Donald flattens Bradley in 2nd

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, March 1, 2000 | 9:59 a.m.

Larry Donald long ago established the fact he could defeat the typical journeyman and now he's anxious once again to test himself against the best the heavyweight division has to offer.

Donald needed only 4:02 to dispose of still another overmatched opponent Tuesday night when he whacked out Mark Bradley early in the second round of their scheduled 12-round fight at the Plaza. The one-sided victory reiterated the obvious: Donald can look real good when the competition is mediocre.

But even he wants to see how he would fare against someone from the top 10, where he stands in all three of the major organizations' rankings.

"It doesn't bother me to fight guys like this, because I want to stay sharp," Donald said after improving to 37-1-1 with 22 knockouts. "My problem is getting one of these good, young heavyweights to fight."

In an effort to hasten a legitimate challenge, Donald has taken to calling out some of the division's young bucks. Beyond the obvious -- undisputed champion Lennox Lewis and Michael Grant -- he mentioned David Tua (34-1) by name.

"I'd like to line them all up," Donald said. "I'm feeling my time is now. I'm ready for a big fight."

His fight with Bradley was big only in the sense that it gave Donald the North American Boxing Federation title. He also earned $40,000 for his quick night's work, but, beyond that, little was gained as Bradley clearly was not championship material -- and was paid accordingly at $8,000.

"I didn't have the confidence to do the things I knew I needed to do," Bradley said after regaining his bearings in the dressing room. "He had something like 15 inches on me, so I couldn't get out of the way of his shots and still hit him."

Bradley, 12-3, is a natural cruiserweight who usually fights at 195 pounds. While he weighed 215 for this one, he was physically dwarfed by the 253-pound Donald.

"Larry can only work on the guys they put in front of him," said his trainer, Aaron Snowell. "He's got to take care of these average fighters and these fighters that don't look like they belong in the ring with him."

Donald did that with Bradley, bloodying his nose in a dominant opening round and finishing the job with a crisp right hand that put Bradley down and out at the 1:02 mark of the second round.

"He put all his authority on the guy," Snowell said of Donald. "He overwhelmed him."

Donald has done that regularly against similar opposition. Yet for all of his fights and his nine years in the sport, he has had only one significant bout -- losing to Riddick Bowe in 1994. Since that loss Donald has fought a succession of men like Bradley, although the victories have allowed him to move up to No. 4, No. 6 and No. 9 rankings by the IBF, WBC and WBA respectively.

"I can get my rounds in camp," Donald said, when asked if he would have preferred a little more work. "I didn't want to let this guy stick around and maybe make me look bad."

In truth, there was no chance of that.

In other fights on the Plaza card: Antonio Tarver, 16-0, needed to throw only two punches in knocking out Ernest Mateen, 24-9-2, at 56 seconds of the opening round of their light heavyweight fight scheduled for 10; Radford Beasley, 19-0, stopped Rene Rojas, 16-11-1, at 33 seconds of the fifth round of their featherweight fight scheduled for 12; Nate Jones, 13-0-1, stopped Matt Green, 11-8, at 2:35 of the opening round of their heavyweight fight scheduled for four; and Chantel Stanciel, 15-1-1, stopped Damone Wright, 13-15-1, at 2:59 of the fourth round of their junior middleweight fight scheduled for eight.