Pacquiao doesn’t look right at weigh-in

By Boxing News - 06/08/2012 - Comments

By Chris Williams: As Dan Rafael of ESPN pointed out, an “upset is in the air” the for tomorrow’s clash between WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao and Tim Bradley. Having seen many of Manny Pacquiao’s previous weigh-ins in the past, you could see something isn’t right with him as he weighed in today with challenger Tim Bradley for their fight on Saturday. All that training and Pacquiao still doesn’t look right mentally. This is going to be bad tomorrow night.

I’m glad they didn’t stick a microphone under Pacquiao’s face at that moment, because I think we might have heard some awful shuddering that wouldn’t have made any sense. You know how it is sometimes when you get nervous and someone asks you to speak.

If I was to put my finger on it I’d say Pacquiao looked scared. I don’t remember ever seeing him look this way before but it was hard to miss, especially when he came eye to eye with the menacing Bradley during their stare down. Pacquiao looked like he wanted to jump off the stage. He was badly out of sorts for some reason. I’m not sure what the problem was. Maybe it’s the realization sinking in that he’s finally bit off more than he can chew after all those years of easy fights against mostly stationary fighters that were easy to hit, slow as molasses and over-matched for one reason or another.

As far as I can tell, Bradley is only the second African American fighter that Pacquiao will have faced during his career. Pacquiao fought Shane Mosley, but the guy was 40-years-old and so past his prime that it wasn’t even funny. It was sad that Bob Arum even made the fight between Pacquiao and Mosley, because Mosley hadn’t won a fight in two years. I know he fought Joshua Clottey, but he’s not from the United States. He’s from Ghana. Bradley, with his speed and ability to box and punch with amazing hand speed that almost equals Pacquiao’s own, we could see Pacquiao out of his element on Saturday.

We’ve seen plenty of Pacquiao’s fights where he’s fought guys who had been pounded before he fought them. We also saw guys who had to deal with catch-weights that hurt them and helped Pacquiao. But Bradley isn’t one of those fighters, and he’s not being weakened by a catchweight.



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