Bradley, 29, was knocked down in the 12th round of the fight, and also badly hurt by big shots from Provodnikov in the 1st, 2nd, and 6th rounds.
There’s a lot of controversy today about why the referee failed to rule it a knockdown in the 1st round when a staggering Bradley went down on the canvas or why a knockdown wasn’t scored in the 2nd round when a big shot sent Bradley flying across the ring to where he landed against the ropes.
To some boxing fans it seemed pretty clear that if the ropes weren’t there, Bradley would have fell down back first from the shot.
Bradley suffered swelling on both sides of his face and he said he was still dizzy after the bout when he was being interviewed by Max Kellerman of HBO.
Some boxing fans wonder why Bradley didn’t elect to box from the very start of the fight to avoid Provodnikov’s hard power shots. It looked like Bradley made it a point to go out and try to fight Provodnikov toe-to-toe.
What was soon apparent was that Bradley didn’t have the power to fight in that kind of style, as he was slapping at Provodnikov and getting belted in return by big shots.
Bradley also didn’t have the chin for the job because he was hurt frequently in the first two rounds. It was only after Bradley started boxing an arm weary Provodnikov that that he was able to find any kind of success in the fight.
Bradley hadn’t tried to slug in his previous fight against an older Manny Pacquiao. He ran for most of the fight until gaining confidence in the 2nd half of the fight to mix it up with Pacquiao after noticing he was tiring. Last night, Bradley attempted to slug with Provodnikov from the start and he made a mistake in doing so because it perhaps should have cost him the fight had the referee ruled the two knockdowns in the 1st and 2nd rounds.
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