Bradley: Pacquiao is truly afraid to fight me again

By Boxing News - 09/13/2012 - Comments

Image: Bradley: Pacquiao is truly afraid to fight me againBy Chris Williams: Unbeaten WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (29-0, 12 KO’s) is firmly convinced that the aging 33-year-old Manny Pacquiao chose not to fight him again not because a fight with him wouldn’t make a ton of money but rather because Pacquiao is just plain afraid to get in the ring with him once more and risk getting beaten again against a fighter who now has two good legs working for him.

Bradley said this to RingTV about Pacquiao: “So we all know that Manny’s truly afraid to fight me again.”

Pacquiao with guidance from his promoter Bob Arum will be fighting Juan Manuel Marquez on December 8th in Las Vegas, Nevada. Pacquiao and Arum are going with the proven pay per view draw in 39-year-old Marquez.

Bradley seems to have been weeded out mostly because his previous fight with Pacquiao only drew 700,000 PPV buys last June, whereas Pacquiao’s fight with Marquez last November brought in 1.2 million buys. That’s nearly twice as many buys and Arum didn’t want to risk losing that money by having Pacquiao fight Bradley in another fight that may have brought in less than spectacular numbers.

It’s highly possible that both Pacquiao and Arum don’t want to have to deal with Bradley again, because his style was really tough for the Filipino star to try and figure out. Pacquiao had problems with Bradley’s mobility all throughout the fight, in particular in the last four rounds. Pacquiao faded late and the movement that Bradley was doing made things especially hard for Pacquiao to deal with. This was Bradley with two injured legs.

In a rematch with two healthy legs and perhaps at a lower weight in order to pick up some more speed, Bradley would have been a tough out for the 33-year-old Pacquiao. His style is not the type that Pacquiao has traditionally done well, and you have to wonder what Arum was thinking when he thought up the not so brilliant idea of putting his cash cow Pacquiao in with Bradley in the first place.



Comments are closed.