A distracted Pacquiao is there for the taking by Bradley

By Boxing News - 05/16/2012 - Comments

Image: A distracted Pacquiao is there for the taking by BradleyBy Chris Williams: Seemingly being pecked at by all sides after his recent comments made about gay marriage, WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao could be distracted enough to where he won’t be at 100% on June 9th against Tim Bradley.

In a way it’s a bad thing because Pacquiao will have a ready made excuse should he lose the fight. We already had his trainer doing damage control after Pacquiao’s questionable win over Juan Manuel Marquez last November, blaming it on family issues.

This has got to be far worse for Pacquiao being instead of being ignored for his comments on gay marriage and the like, he’s taking a lot of heat from fans who don’t agree with what the religiously conservative Pacquiao believes in. Oh sure there are some boxing fans that are in lock step behind what Pacquiao believes in, but judging by the overwhelming amount of negative press Pacquiao is getting with writers and fans in internet forums, it seems that a lot of fans are turned off.

If this thing dies out then it may not be a problem for Pacquiao, but if it continues with a life of it’s own, Pacquiao will continue to be skewered by fans and writers. This couldn’t have come at a worse time for Pacquiao after his very controversial win over Juan Manuel Marquez last November. Pacquiao looked like he’d lost a few steps and performed nothing like what he used to. Some fans see it as just a fluke thing brought about by his match-up with the clever counter punching Marquez, while others see it as a case of Pacquiao having been worn down by age and the effects of too many ring wars.

I see it as a combination of the two. Pacquiao is getting older and he’s taken a lot of punishing hits from bigger fighters in the past few years. Pacquiao is really nothing more than a pumped up super featherweight, and he’s taking shots from welterweights with good power. That obviously hasn’t helped him any, because Pacquiao isn’t a defensive fighter and tends to get hit a lot.