Bradley-Pacquiao Too

At the same time that Manny Pacquiao was questioning Floyd Mayweather’s manhood while suggesting they fight and donate the proceeds to charity, his promoter was putting the finishes touches on a rematch with Timothy Bradley.

It’s been a long time coming. That the rematch took forever to materialize is something for which we can be grateful. In the interim there were memorable fights between Bradley and Ruslan Provodnikov and Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez. There were also the somewhat less-than-memorable fights between Bradley and Marquez and Pacquiao and Brandon Rios, but we can be grateful for those as well.

But the above fights, unforgettable or not, paved the way for the inevitable and not altogether welcome rematch scheduled for Saturday, April 12, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

To call the first fight between Pacquiao and Bradley controversial is an understatement. Most objective observers, no, make that all objectives observers, felt the challenger failed to take the belt from the champ, an impression bolstered by seeing Bradley in a wheelchair.

It wasn’t boxing’s finest moment. It was an even less fine moment in the history of horrid decisions.

Some have called that victory destiny. Others have called it incompetence or worse. But whatever it was, it elevated Bradley, if not into the stratosphere, at least into orbit around Planet Boxing. It also diminished the shining star that was Pacquiao.

After being the KTFO by Marquez in their fourth fight, Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KOs) rebounded with a decisive victory over slow as molasses Brandon Rios. Bradley (31-0, 12 KOs), by contrast, simply soldiered on, first by notching his second controversial win in as many fights against Provodnikov, and then handily defeating 40-year-old Marquez in his last bout. Despite those accomplishments, Bradley, however skilled, athletic and muscular, has not set the world on fire.

Will he set the world on fire this time? Not if he’s smart (which he is). There’s no reason for Bradley to rumble with Pacquiao. As he proved in his first fight with Manny and as Rios disproved in his last, the way to beat Pacquiao is to box him, stay on the outside, avoid getting into a firefight. Bradley has done it before, and he will do it again.

“Now I’m not the little dog on the block,” he told The Desert Sun. “I’m a top dog. I’m a lot more mature as a fighter, as a man. I’m a little older, Pacquiao is a little older, so it’s different. I’ve had some great wins in those two years and I feel I’m more than ready.

“It’s almost like I spar someone the first time. Okay, you get a few shots. The second time it’s much easier, because I know what to expect. Pacquiao can say the same thing about me. But Pacquiao only fights one-way guys. Only one way, and that’s the Pacquiao way.

“I think Manny Pacquiao will get aggressive until he gets hit. People are going to laugh about this, and it’s okay, they can laugh. But like I said, if I was a non-puncher, if I didn’t have anything, guys would walk completely straight through me.”

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