Timothy Bradley can’t leave boxing without some appreciation

Timothy Bradley’s retirement from boxing late Saturday night was lost in the shuffle of super-featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko’s impressive victory on ESPN.

Bradley, who’ll turn 34 on Aug. 29, allowed it to transpire that way.

The proud Coachella Valley fighter who made himself a two-division champion by improving through bouts at a Corona lumber yard and the Ontario Doubletree hotel ballroom did not return messages left him by The Times last week after the Ring first reported he would leave boxing.

As he served his new duty as a television analyst alongside his former trainer Teddy Atlas on Saturday, a statement was emailed to reporters.

“There always comes a point in life where we have to make choices that no matter how much we know the right option, it still leaves us filled with mixed emotions,” Bradley wrote in his farewell.

“It is no secret that a life of any professional athlete is not an easy one — yes, it comes with fame and fortune, but also comes with fear and fatigue. A balance has to be achieved by ambition and maintained through perspective.”

Bradley wrote that for 23 years his passion for boxing, love of his team and admiration for supportive fight fans sustained him.

He became a world champion by venturing to England to defeat then-light-welterweight champion Junior Witter. He unified the division by handing Devon Alexander his first loss, then landed his first of three fights against Manny Pacquiao.

Judges Duane Ford and C.J. Ross stunningly scored that one for Bradley, and the public backlash around what he wanted to celebrate as a triumph fueled him to engage in a toe-to-toe war the next year against Ruslan Provodnikov.

Bradley was concussed and knocked down in the narrow victory, then returned seven months later to edge Mexico’s Juan Manuel Marquez — who also retired last week — by split decision at the Forum.

“The bumps, the bruises, the peaks, the valleys, the days I didn’t want to get out of bed and nights I couldn’t sleep. So many occasions where my heart, mind and soul were tested, but with every challenge, there was hope,” Bradley wrote.

“Boxing gave me roots, kept me off the streets, gave me confidence, taught me how to be a man. … It took my blood, sweat and tears, all things I can never get back. Which is why turning the page for me is bittersweet.”

After Bradley called Saturday’s fight, he walked across the first row of reporters and was told by one, “Sad to see you go. ...”

He responded, “Don’t be sad. I’m retiring from boxing. My own decision. Usually boxing retires fighters.”

Bradley (33-2-1, 13 knockouts) told The Times he was in talks to stage a fight this year against unbeaten Fresno fighter Jose Ramirez when he landed a spot doing commentary for ESPN for what was expected to be a victory by Pacquiao against Australia’s Jeff Horn on July 1.

Fighting in a Brisbane stadium filled with more than 50,000 fans, Horn won the fight by unanimous decision. Although the outcome was disputed by many — including Atlas — Bradley was shocked to see his rival Pacquiao, 38, absorb so many punches in losing his World Boxing Organization belt.

(Bradley’s final bout ends up being his April 2016 loss to Pacquiao, who dropped Bradley twice in that fight.)

Bradley said that during his flight home from Australia, he reflected on Pacquiao’s slip to mortality, and noticed something else.

“The old Tim Bradley would’ve been thinking, ‘Jeff Horn … get me him in the ring, I can [beat him], I’m going to get that belt,’” Bradley told The Times. “That wasn’t there. I was thinking about this great fighter, Pacquiao, taking so many of those punches … that’s never happened. Why did that happen? We all get old.”

Bradley said that by the time he reached Los Angeles, he had resolved that something like that wasn’t going to happen to him, either.

“That once-in-a-lifetime purpose to wake up every day and give 100 percent is now fueled toward something else: my family,” he wrote in his retirement statement. “I wake up wanting to spend all my time being a father, being a husband and being free.

“Although that square circle I lived to dance in every day gave me so many smiles and blessings, it could never out-weigh the smiles and blessings I receive from my wife and children.”

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

@latimespugmire