By Tom Graves: Boxing judge Duane Ford who was the most experience judge chosen to handle the task of scoring ‘Fighting Pride of the Philippines’ Manny Pacquiao bout Vs Desert Storm ‘Timothy Ray Bradley, Jr.’ was interviewed by Jim Lampley for the TV show “The Fight Game with Jim Lampley”.

During the interview Duane Ford made a very alarming statement on Pacquiao’s performance;

“But what I saw in the fourth round, is that Pacquiao clearly won that. He hurt Bradley, but the Manny Pacquiao that I’ve judged in the past would have finished him. He let him off the hook.”

This is truly worrying to think that the judges minds were side tracked comparing how good Pacquiao was in previous bouts compared to the on-going boxing match in front of their own eyes. The judges should have started from fresh and simply scored a man vs another man, disregarding one’s superstar status and the other’s underdog reputation.

He also previously stated that all three judges were in agreement that it was a close fight. Defended the general feeling him and the two other judges had made a big misjudgement by saying that between the three of them, they had been involved “in excess of 350” world title fights, and that he believed there was a “misunderstanding” in the boxing community, which thinks “the same criteria that you use for amateurs is used on the professional.”

Personally I was disgusted by the decision and felt sorry for Pacquiao, although I was pro-Marquez when their 3rd battle ended and ‘Pacman’ was handed the close decision, close is the key word, whereas Pacquiao v Bradley was far from close.