The importance of Pacquiao-Bradley fight

By Al S. Mendoza

IT is now a done deal.  Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley will fight on April 12 (April 13 in Manila) in Las Vegas.

If you ask me, I’ll call this bout a very politically correct match-up.

Anytime, I’m going to give my thumbs-up sign to it.

First, their fight in 2012 was actually a farce.  Fluke.  Short of being a fake.

Clearly, Pacquiao won that bout.

Not a single round went clearly to Bradley.

And yet, two of the three judges made Bradley the winner.

Again, the bullshit side of boxing reared its ugly head.

Bradley won that on the manipulated scorecards of two judges and, alas, in boxing, that travesty is allowed.

Who was it again who said that boxing is the red light district of sports?

A subsequent jury formed to review the judgment gave a verdict that installed Pacquiao the winner by unanimous decision, thereby invalidating the split decision win stolen by Bradley—courtesy of the two crooks.

But in boxing, the original decision, whether bum or not, stands.

And so Bradley gets away with a fake victory and learns to live with it two years in a row.

But four months from now, Bradley will have to face the man from whom he had, through no fault of his own, stolen his crown.

And Bradley will climb the ring proud, having scored two successive victories hence.

First, he mightily defeated Ruslan Provodnikov in a slugfest and then scoring next a big win over Juan Manuel Marquez.

It was a big win against Marquez because before beating the Mexican Dynamite, Marquez scored a sensational 6th-round knockout of Pacquiao in December 2012.

If Bradley was the runner of a fighter when he fought Pacquiao in 2012, he had brilliantly transformed into a methodical fighter to snatch those well-deserved victories over Provodnikov and Marquez.

In fact, Bradley’s record is not something to sneeze at:  He is unbeaten in 31 fights.

So that easily, he is, technically the best candidate to face Floyd Mayweather Jr., the only other unbeaten (42 wins) fighter who could give Bradley a crack at immortality.

That can happen if only Bradley can beat Pacquiao a second time.

Especially so if Bradley could come up with a truer-than-true victory, totally annihilating the ugliness and stench of that 2012 victory of his against Pacquiao that put boxing’s reputation in the doldrums once more.

But then, Bradley beating Pacquiao again is easier said than done.

Surely, Pacquiao has learned his lesson and will now let loose his entire arsenal to ensure victory, if only to prove that his devastating 12-round destruction of Brandon Rios in November in Macau was no fluke.

Thus, against Bradley, Pacquiao cannot afford to lose.  It could mean, he should really consider retiring.  Seriously.

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