Roach: Bradley doesn’t have the skills or the experience to beat Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 06/09/2012 - Comments

Image: Roach: Bradley doesn't have the skills or the experience to beat PacquiaoBy Esteban Garduno: Trainer Freddie Roach has been busy the past few weeks carrying his fighter WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao’s water by talking for him leading up to his fight tonight against Tim Bradley on HBO. The way Roach figures it, Bradley doesn’t stand a chance against Pacquiao.

Roach told the Manila Bulletin “It’s too soon [for Bradley]. I don’t think he is ready for Manny Pacquiao. He doesn’t have the skills, the experience. He has never fought at this level before and Manny will expose that.”

Roach better keep his fingers crossed that he knows what he’s talking about, because Bradley IS experienced. Any fighter that has mixed it up and dominated a guy like Devon Alexander is an experienced and a skilled fighter.

You don’t beat a guy like Alexander unless you’ve got skills. Bradley also has a near shutout win over Lamont Peterson. This is the same Peterson that recently defeated Amir Khan last December. Bradley beat Peterson with ease, whereas Khan was beaten up by him.

Roach is going to have to come up with few different game plans for tonight’s bout if his estimation of Bradley’s talent turns out to be wrong. Roach won’t want to be someone up the creek without paddle because he was foolishly too confident about Pacquiao’s abilities. What Roach needs to do is sit down and recognize one of the most important factors for why Pacquiao has been so successful in the past three years.

He’s faced a lot of guys on the downhill portion of their careers. In addition to that, Pacquiao has had the help of catchweights in some of his bouts, and those catchweights helped him more than they did his opponents. Pacquiao has been winning, but he’s not been in with a dangerous guy like Bradley, who can both box and punch.



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