By Manuel Perez: World Boxing Organization light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (24-0, 11 KO’s) doesn’t see Manny Pacquiao as being the best fighter in boxing. On the contrary, Bradley has a refreshing perspective on the kind of fighter that he thinks Pacquiao. In a conference call this past week, Bradley had this to say about Pacquiao:
“Manny Pacquiao is the best fighter supposedly. Whatever. He’s [Pacquiao] fighting the best in the division, though. He’s fighting bigger fighters who are cutting weight and chopping them up because they’re weakened coming down in weight.”
I completely agree with Bradley. What is going on here with Pacquiao? Why does he have to force the best fighters in boxing to come down to his catch weights to fight him? Isn’t he courageous enough to fight them at their normal weights? I don’t see what Pacquiao is afraid of. He should be able to fight these guys at their given weight instead of having them melt down and end up too weak to fight at their best.
To start with, he should have lost both fighters to Juan Manuel Marquez. And given that the judges screwed up both times in my view and gave Pacquiao and draw and then a 12 round split decision victory, Pacquiao should have chased Marquez down and given him a rematch immediately.
That’s what I would have done if it had been me. I couldn’t stand to look at myself in the mirror if I felt that I didn’t win a fight conclusively and I would have been on the phone immediately giving my promoter marching orders about getting me a rematch.
And then the second thing I don’t like about him is that he’s been taking it pretty easy in the way of opponents in the past year. Facing Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton isn’t exactly the murderer’s row of top fighters in the light welterweight and welterweight divisions at this time.
Hatton may have been considered to be the top fighter by the more naïve followers of the sport, but since Hatton hadn’t been keeping up with facing the top fighters in the light welterweight division for the past year, he shouldn’t have been the one that Pacquiao went after. Hatton wasn’t facing Bradley, Kendall Holt or Marcos Maidana; He instead was fighting people like Paulie Malignaggi, Juan Lazcano and Jose Luis Castillo.
There was clearly some other good fighters like Bradley, Holt, Maidana and Junior Witter that Pacquiao could have fought. As such, those were the fighters Pacquiao should have been going after in my view, especially after seeing Hatton get knocked out by Mayweather and badly hurt by Lazcano.
It was pretty much academic at that point that Hatton was on the downward slide in his career.
I want to see Pacquiao in with Marquez, Shane Mosley and Paul Williams. Those would be great fights for Pacquiao, and would help his legacy.
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