Though Timothy Bradley’s WBO welterweight title is on the line when he takes on Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KOs) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas this Saturday night on a HBO PPV card, there is much more than a belt at stake in this one. Each man, for different reasons, feels that he was wronged in the first meeting. In the first fight on June 9, 2012, most boxing observers agreed that Pacquiao boxed the head off Bradley (31-0, 12 KOs) for 12 rounds before somehow losing a split decision on the judges’ scorecards.
Though called the winner, Bradley has been bristling ever since. He feels he was never afforded the respect for beating such a worthy opponent and he has said that he went through months of professional and sometimes personal abuse for a decision that was out of his hands.
Since the first fight, both men have retained mostly the same teams. Bradley continues to work with Joel Diaz and Pacquiao with Freddie Roach. However, team Pacquiao has welcomed strength and fitness trainer Justin Fortune back into the fold.
Roach has been bragging that Pacquiao will knock out Bradley this weekend. The Pac Man has not had a KO for several years, but Roach is convinced that his man has regained the killer streak that once made him so feared. Pacquiao was also reportedly annoyed at Bradley in their face-off with Max Kellerman for being labeled too nice a guy. Pacquiao, who maintains there are still plenty of fights in him, will have to keep his trainer’s word if he wants to reinforce the notion that behind the smile still lurks a cold finisher.
Since the first meeting, both men have had some very tough fights. As we all remember, Pacquiao was knocked out cold by Juan Manuel Marquez in their fight on December 8, 2012. He took nearly a year off and then came back with a UD win over Brandon Rios in Macau, China.
Bradley, still fuming at the bad public reaction to the Pacquiao win, followed that fight up by taking on former Pacquiao sparring partner Ruslan Provodnikov in March 2013 in what turned into a complete war. He was nearly knocked out twice, once at the early rounds and then once in the later rounds, but he showed his toughness to eek out an SD win. However, it was not without a cost. Bradley has said that he suffered from slurred speech and loss of memory for weeks after the fight as a result of the punishment he sustained in that fight. After fully recuperating from that battle, he took on Juan Manuel Marquez last October and won a split decision.
So will Pacquiao rewind the clock and regain his KO ways, or can the Bradley beat back the tide of naysayers for once and for all by winning convincingly? Tell us what you think.
