By Frank (Frankly) Livingstone: It was branded an upset of epic proportion. It was supposed to be a sideshow to Manny Pacquiao’s pending mega-fight with Floyd Mayweather if it went according to the script. But alas, two judges didn’t see it that way and the sport of boxing has once again been thrown to unwanted controversy.

The compubox final punch-stats clearly show Pacquiao getting the upper-hand in the number of punches connected, Also a number of sportswriters have Pacquiao as the clear winner of the fight but two judges, C J Ross and Duane Ford beg to differ giving Bradley a score of 115-113. The other judge, Jerry Roth had a score of 115-113 for Pacquiao.

The fight was delayed to accommodate Pacquiao who needed extra time to warm up after watching the NBA Eastern Conference Finals between Boston and Miami. This is quite an unusual distraction less than an hour before the fight and the HBO commentators were concerned whether Manny has warmed up completely before stepping into the ring.

The fight has lived up to its hype as both fighters gave quite a show. Tim Bradley came out firing in the opening round. Pacquiao then slowly begin to have his timing and target right in the following rounds. He even had Bradley in trouble in the middle rounds but could just not finish him off. To his credit, Bradley was able to withstand Pacquiao’s onslaught and finished strong in the last two rounds.

Watching the fight in the QH suburb down under, I realized that the Manny Pacquiao I just saw in the ring is beginning to lose his shine and could have easily disposed of Bradley if this was the Manny Pacquiao three years ago.

Bradley put up a great fight and should put his head up even if the decision went against him. Bradley was surprised with the result as with the majority of the audience in the arena. It was even reported that just before the result was announced, Bradley said to Bob Arum, “ I tried hard but I could not beat that guy”. Well Timothy, good things can sometimes happen to good guys after all. Believe it or not.