Bradley’s victory over Marquez gives him confidence to beat Pacquiao again

By Boxing News - 02/03/2014 - Comments

bradley3222By Chris Williams: Since beating 40-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez last October by a 12 round split decision, WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (31-0, 12 KO’s) has renewed confidence that he’ll be victorius in his rematch with Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KO’s) on April 12th in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bradley feels that his win over Marquez was an easy fight for him. Bradley sees his win over Marquez translating to another big victory over the 35-year-old Pacquiao; at least that’s how he has it worked out in his mind.

Bradley’s win over Marquez wasn’t one of the more interesting fights to watch due to Bradley’s constant circling of the ring. He mixed it up with Marquez from time to time, but for the most part, Bradley stayed on his bike and focused on not getting hit.

“This time around, me being one hundred percent, I took out the guy [Marquez] that knocked out Pacquiao,” Bradley said to On the Ropes Boxing Radio. “I know styles make fights but, it was easy beating Marquez, and Pacquiao always struggled against Marquez. Why does Pacquiao always struggle against Marquez? Because Marquez all he done was out-think him. That was it. He out-thought him and just counter-punched. I can do that. I out counter-punched Marquez. I was able to out-think him.”

Pacquiao and Marquez are much different fighters, so Bradley is making a big mistake assuming that a win over Marquez means that he’ll be able to beat Pacquiao in the rematch. Beating Marquez only means that he beat an aging counter puncher who is poor at initiating action on his own. But Pacquiao is more like Ruslan Provodnikov with his tendency to put a lot of pressure on his opponents, and force them into situations where they’re having to fight it out.

Bradley isn’t revealing what his plans are for trying to deal with Pacquiao in the rematch, but he is saying that he has a few strategies that he’s going to use to slug with Pacquiao. He says he’ll use movement again like last time he fought Pacquiao, but he’ll pick certain points where he’ll be looking to throw combinations against him.

If history is any guide, Bradley will try and steal the rounds in the last minute by throwing a lot of quick combinations. He knows that the judges tend to score the action in the last minute rather than what happens in the first two-thirds of every rounds, so you can expect Bradley to fight hard in the last portion of each round.



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