By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (31-0, 12 KO’s) believes his better boxing brain will lead him to victory in his rematch against Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KO’s) in their rematch on April 12th. Bradley was able to out-box and out-think Pacquiao in their fight two years ago in 2012, and he sees himself doing it once again this year. Bradley believes that Pacquiao is a one-dimensional fighter with one really good gear that he uses. Bradley feels that if you negate that one gear that Pacquiao has then you can beat him pretty much every time.
“I feel I’m the more intelligent fighter,” Bradley said to Fighthype. “I’m coming off one of the biggest wins of my career against Marquez, and he’s by far one of the most intelligent fighters in the boxing game and I was able to out-think him. I’ll be able to out-think Pacquiao as well. Coming into this fight, I feel I definitely will be able to out-think Pacquiao…Pacquiao has a lot of speed and power in both hands, but he’s very predictable.”
Bradley went on to say that he feels that Juan Manuel Marquez would be the tougher fight for him than Pacquiao due to Marquez’s superior intelligence in the ring. Bradley might have a point. Marquez is clearly a much more difficult fighter to deal with than Pacquiao because of the way that he can make adjustments. That could be one of the reasons why Bradley is so reluctant to get back in the ring with Marquez for a second time. He must know by now that Marquez would train more for power the second time around, and would be looking to cut off the ring and force Bradley into exchanges a lot more than he did in the first fight. Marquez would use the Ruslan Provodnikov – Bradley fight as a blueprint in how to beat Bradley, and things could be tough on the unbeaten Bradley.
Pacquiao didn’t have the ability to adjust in his fight with Bradley two years ago. Pacquiao was stuck in the same mold and unable or unwilling to cut off the ring on Bradley. I’m sure that Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach will be looking to put more focus on having Pacquiao cut off the ring on Bradley, but whether Pacquiao can do that or not is the big question. I’ve never seen a fight where Pacquiao has shown the ability to cut off the ring on one of his opponents, and I doubt he’ll all of a sudden show that ability in the rematch with Bradley.
The thing is if Pacquiao can’t force Bradley into a corner where he’ll need to fight his way out of it, Bradley could wind up using his ring intelligence to box his way to another 12 round decision. Let’s be honest about this fight; Bradley has a huge advantage over Pacquiao in that he’s not going in there looking to score a stoppage. The only thing that Bradley wants to do is to out-box Pacquiao for 12 rounds, and that’s going to give him a big advantage in this fight. Pacquiao is the one with a chip on his shoulder in wanting to show that the judges got it wrong last time. Pacquiao is the one who feels that he needs to entertain his fans by slugging it out with his opposition. Those two things are heavy crosses for Pacquiao to bear.
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