By Allan Fox: 38-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez isn’t giving WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (28-0, 12 KO’s) much of a chance of beating Manny Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 KO’s) on June 9th. Marquez doesn’t feel that Bradley has the offensive tools to beat Pacquiao.

Marquez knows full well about what Pacquiao brings to the ring in this fight, as he just took him on and lost by a narrow 12 round majority decision last November. Marquez sees Pacquiao as having too much speed and power in this fight compared to the relatively light hitting Bradley, who also isn’t nearly as fast as the 33-year-old Filipino star.

Marquez told RingTV “He [Bradley] needs the power. He [does not] have that power. Pacquiao has the speed and Pacquiao has the power. The difference in the fight is power. The difference will be the power punches that Pacquiao has.”

Marquez has fought Pacquiao three times in his career and was hoping to get a fourth fight. However, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum decided it was a better idea to make this an in house Top Rank fight. Arum will likely use Marquez in a fight against Pacquiao in late 2012 or in 2013 if Pacquiao doesn’t retire. But for now, Arum wants to put Pacquiao in with the unbeaten Bradley.

It’s a fight that won’t make as much money as a fourth fight between Pacquiao and Marquez, but by putting Pacquiao in with Bradley, it will increase the value of Bradley with Top Rank. That in turn will make Bradley a more valuable fighter in the future. The Marquez-Pacquiao fourth fight can wait a little longer, because that’s a fight that the boxing public will still want whether it happens this year or next. But Bradley needs to be more valuable to Top Rank, so he gets the fight now.

This should be a safe fight for Pacquiao, because like Marquez pointed out, Pacquiao is the one with the speed and power in this fight. Bradley is an excellent fighter, but he’s going to be up against it in this fight due to Pacquiao’s faster hands and better power. Bradley is going to have to come up with a different strategy if he wants to win because he won’t be able to fight on the inside like he’s been doing for most of his career. If he stands in front of Pacquiao, he’ll take too much punishment and won’t last long. Pacquiao will throw 1000 punches if he has a Bradley standing in front of him and I kind of doubt that Bradley will be able to take that kind of punishment without going down.