Bradley: Pacquiao’s career might be over if he loses to me

By Boxing News - 03/28/2014 - Comments

bradley32483By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (31-0, 12 KO’s) thinks he could be the guy that takes Manny Pacquiao’s scalp once and for all in their rematch, and sends the 35-year-old fighter skittering into retirement from the loss. Bradley knows that the Filipino star literally has his back against the wall at this point in his career with 2 losses in his last 3 fights.

Pacquiao has been full of excuses for his two losses, but the way Bradley sees it, Pacquiao won’t be able to come up with any excuses after he beats him for the 2nd time on April 12th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. He’ll have to either retire or accept the fact that he’s not even the 2nd best fighter in the welterweight division. He’ll be behind Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Bradley in occupying the #3 spot.

“The reason why Pacquiao really needs to win this fight is because if he loses this fight, think about it – his career might be over,” Bradley said.

Pacquiao has already said before his last fight against Brandon Rios that he wouldn’t retire if he loses to him, so I doubt Pacquiao will retire if Bradley beats him again. But Pacquiao will still be as good as retired, because he won’t be taken seriously by a lot of fans and fighters. He’ll still be good enough to beat most of Bob Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters like Rios, Mike Alvarado and Mikey Garcia, but Bradley will definitely have his number, just as Juan Manuel Marquez has his number.

Pacquiao is one of those fighters that will likely be still fighting when he’s still way past his prime. I just hope he doesn’t end up like guys that fought too long like Evander Holyfield and James Toney, but I have a feeling that’s what we’re going to see with him.

“Now it looks like he [Pacquiao] is more compassionate towards his opponents and that’s not good for boxing.”

I think it’s less to do with Pacquiao being compassionate and more to do with him not having the stamina, power or the ability to cut off the ring against his opponents more than anything. The whole compassionate angle that Bradley has been talking about is really been overplayed. That’s not the reason why Pacquiao has been losing to Bradley and Marquez.

Pacquiao lost to both guys because he had problems with his game that those guys were able to exploit in a big way. Those wholes will still be there on April 12th for Bradley to exploit, and I see him slipping back into the same groove he had before in dominating Pacquiao and beating him for a second time.



Comments are closed.