Pacquiao to start training camp in February for Bradley fight

By Boxing News - 01/04/2016 - Comments

pac746By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) will begin his 8-week training camp next month in February to get prepared for his 3rd and some hope his final fight against fellow Top Rank fighter WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs) on April 9th.

Pacquiao personally selected Bradley for his next fight from a 3-fighter list that his promoter Bob Arum assembled for him. Two of the fighters on the list were Top Rank fighters, while the third was Amir Khan, who reportedly never had real chance at all of getting the fight.

In a highly controversial move, Pacquiao will training in the Philippines for the first four weeks, and then coming over to the United States to train at his trainer Freddie Roach’s Wildcard Gym in Los Angeles, California for the final four weeks of training.

It was the 37-year-old Pacquiao’s call to train in the Philippines, where there will clearly be a ton of distractions for many reasons. It’s thought by some that Pacquiao will be pulled in every direction when he’s there, partly because of the Philippine election campaigning going on. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Pacquiao making a lot of appearances during his training over there, as he’s running for a senate seat in May.

“We’ll be starting to prepare for my next fight in early February in GenSan,” Pacquiao said to philboxing.com. “As I have been saying, there’s no substitute to early preparation, so as in my previous important outings, I need to prepare as early as possible.

Since Pacquiao was considered to have gotten the better of Bradley in their first two fights, Pacquiao only needs to continue to use the training methods he had before, because he knows Bradley well by now. The only thing that Pacquiao should focus on for this camp is working at cutting off the ring on Bradley, because he’ll likely be using more movement in this fight than he did in their past match in 2014.

Bradley was more stationary in that fight compared to their first fight in 2012, and this made it a lot easier for Pacquiao to land his shots. It’s very likely that Bradley’s new trainer Teddy Atlas will have Bradley go back to what worked for him the best by having him use movement on April 9th to keep Pacquiao from being able to land shots.

They’ll attempt to take part of the blueprint that Mayweather created in beating Pacquiao last May by hitting him with jabs and lead right hands, and then moving away from him when he gets within punching range.

Pacquiao said that he selected Bradley because he felt that it would be a great fight for the boxing fans, but I have a feeling this is going to be a very boring fight because I think Bradley is going to choose to box Pacquiao rather than punch with him. Bradley has said in many interviews that he regrets choosing to punch with Pacquiao last time they fought, and he wishes he had boxed him. That means were very likely going to see Bradley boxing and moving for 12 rounds in a repeat of the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight from last year.

I believe that Pacquiao is going to wind up regretting that he selected Bradley instead of going with someone new like Amir Khan, Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman or Adrien Broner. I think he and his promoter Arum are going to regret this choice, especially when the pay-per-view numbers are released, because there’s no way you can sell a third fight between Pacquiao and Bradley. That was just a dumb move by Pacquiao, Arum and Top Rank.

“That’s my plan and I have already told all those concerned that. But as a team, I also want to know what they have to say in the interest of how prepared I will be for the fight,” Pacquiao said.

Pacquiao won the second fight against Bradley by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 116-112, 118-`118-110 and 116-112.

Pacquiao will need to cut off the ring on Bradley like he did against Chris Algieri if he wants the fight to go well for him. I think Pacquiao did a great job against Algieri in dealing with his movement. However, Pacquiao did not handle Mayweather’s movement well. He looked lost against Mayweather and it was embarrassing to watch. Bradley moves better than Algieri, so this could be a difficult fight for Pacquiao.



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