By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (31-0, 12 KO’s) thinks Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KO’s) has lost his desire for the sport and just fighting for the money instead of fighting for the love of competing. For Bradley, he sees that as the difference between him and the 35-year-old Pacquiao. He still loves competing and wants to fight as well as he can each time he steps in the ring. It’s not about money for Bradley; it’s about him looking to compete and beat his opponent.
“I’m a better fighter. It’s my time to shine,” Bradley said. “Manny’s only fighting for money now.”
It’s hard to argue with Bradley about his opinion on Pacquiao, because he hasn’t looked like he has the same fire that he once did. During the first two episodes of Pacquiao/Bradley 24/7 on HBO, Pacquiao looks too relaxed, too sleepy-eyed, and too bored looked for me to see him winning this fight on Saturday night. In contrast to Bradley’s high intensity workouts, Pacquiao looks like someone who is in the burnout stage.
Some of that could have been avoided if he had swept out his entire team with a big broom and signed up a new trainer along with 2 or 3 strength trainers that would get in his face like a team of drill instructors and shout at him at to get him really moving with a sense of urgency.
Believe, me, if Pacquiao had a new trainer and a team of strength coaches screaming at him during his training sessions, he’d be wide awake and wanting to tear a hole through Bradley on Saturday night. But Pacquiao went with his old trainer Freddie Roach, and pretty much the same team that he’s been having aside from adding strength and conditioning Coach Justin Fortun for this fight.
If Pacquiao is fighting for just money at this point like Bradley says then it’s going to be doubly tough for him to try and beat Bradley, because for him to win this fight for him he’s going to need to take his performance to the highest level possible. Pacquiao is going to need to fight hard for three minutes of every round and endure a great deal of pain, and I don’t think he’s capable of doing that at his age after all the wars he’s been in.
Bradley definitely has the edge in this fight based on his desire to beat the Filipino star and show the boxing fans that he was always the better fighter. It goes without saying that Bradley has a giant chip on his shoulder that he’s going to be looking to get off of him when he enters the ring on Saturday night and starts unloading his shots into the face of Pacquiao. There will be blood in this fight, a lot of it. We’re going to see how well Pacquiao can take the pain, and how well Roach can come up with ideas to counteract what Bradley is doing in the ring.
I just hope Roach doesn’t get flustered and lose his senses completely. Pacquiao is going to need a trainer with a calm head in his corner so that he can have some useful advice to follow to try stop Bradley. In Pacquiao’s past fights, I’ve seen Roach pretty much having Pacquiao in the attack mode most of the time. It’s like Roach has Pacquiao’s foot all the way down on the accelerator, and he’s not coming up with new ideas when it fails to work.
Comments are closed.