Pacquiao should avoid the Bradley rematch if he’s smart

By Boxing News - 06/11/2012 - Comments

Image: Pacquiao should avoid the Bradley rematch if he’s smartBy Chris Williams: Right now, former WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao probably isn’t too happy about getting out-boxed and beaten by Tim Bradley last weekend.

Pacquiao no doubt is telling himself that he should have won the fight, and that he’ll fight Bradley again in November to fix things by avenging the defeat. However, I think that’s incredibly stupid for Pacquiao to do this.

The reason being that he was lucky the first time around with Bradley, because he wasted a lot of time by showing he Filipino fighter too much respect in the early going of the bout. Bradley was treating Pacquiao like he was a knockout threat instead of an aging fighter that is starting to lose his ability to get around the ring.

In a rematch, Bradley won’t waste time trying to slug with Pacquiao like he did last Saturday. Instead, you can look for Bradley to immediately slip into the boxing mode like he was in the second half of their fight, and give Pacquiao major problems.

The problem with Pacquiao is that he doesn’t have the legs to catch up to Bradley nor does he have the boxing skills to compete with him in that kind of fight. Pacquiao absolutely needs for Bradley to be standing stationary in one place for as long as the fight lasts so that Pacquiao can land his left hand power shots.

Bradley isn’t going to do that, so Pacquiao is going to be up a creek without a paddle in the rematch. This is why I believe that Pacquiao needs to go in another direction away from Bradley, and away from Juan Manuel Marquez.

Those guys have styles that Pacquiao can’t beat. What Pacquiao needs to do is go after guys like Matthew Hatton, Victor Ortiz, Andre Berto and Amir Khan. Those are beatable guys that will be right in front of him all night long.



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