By Chris Williams: Floyd Mayweather Sr. thinks that Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) selected Tim Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs) to fight in his next fight on April 9th because he’s the only one of the three candidates that his promoter Bob Arum picked out that he can beat. Arum asked Pacquiao to pick from the following three candidates: Terence Crawford, Tim Bradley and Amir Khan.
Not surprisingly, Pacquiao selected Bradley, a fighter that he’d arguably beaten twice already in their fights in 2012 and 2014. Floyd Sr. thinks that if Pacquiao had fought Crawford, he would have gotten his backside kicked by the American fighter.
Floyd Sr. thinks that Pacquiao took the easy choice by picking out the 32-year-old Bradley rather than choose Crawford or Khan and wind up getting beaten by those two guys.
“That’s one guy [Bradley] he got a win over,” Mayweather Sr. said to Dontae’s Boxing Nation. “That’s the only reason he’s doing that. All those other guys [Terence Crawford and Amir Khan], ain’t nobody got a hold of his [expletive] and kicked him in his [expletive] like he knows will happen again. I think Terence Crawford, no doubt about it, would have put holes in his [expletive]. Most of the guys you called would have given it to him. That’s why he [Pacquiao] didn’t take them. If [Adrien] Broner came and fought like he can really fight, he’s out of there too. It ain’t no win for him, that’s what I’m telling. He’s chasing [Mayweather Jr] to try and get on the road he was. You know what? He’s going to fall into a trap to do that. He ain’t thinking about Mayweather. That’s something long behind him now. He’s going to leave that alone forever,” Floyd Sr. said.
It’s hard to come up with anything to disagree with in what Floyd Sr. is saying about Pacquiao. I do believe that Pacquiao chose the easy option in selecting what many boxing fans see as a paper champion in Bradley. If Pacquiao had selected Crawford or Khan, he would have been dealing with a lot of problems from both of those guys. They’re both fast and have the ability out-box guys like Pacquiao.
Pacquiao might have been thinking about his political career when he selected Bradley as his next opponent instead of Crawford or Khan. It wouldn’t have looked good at all if Pacquiao had picked Crawford or Khan and wound up getting knocked out by them like he was by Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012. If Pacquiao got knocked out by Crawford in his April fight, it could have had negative ramifications for him in the elections in May in the Philippines.
It’s no secret that Pacquiao is running for a nice senate seat over there. It’s a good paying job and Pacquiao could be on course to one day run for the presidency of the Philippines. Of course, if Pacquiao lost his last fight by a knockout to someone like Crawford, then maybe he doesn’t get elected into the senate in May. Everything potentially changes with a negative circumstance like that.
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