By Chris Williams: Bob Arum could really regret not making the Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight if Pacquiao’s next opponent 28-year-old unbeaten Tim Bradley turns around and beats Pacquiao. Arum waited too long for the Juan Manuel Lopez – Yuriorkis Gamboa fight, wanting to let the fight marinate. Lopez has now lost his last two fights both by knockouts and nobody cares about seeing a Lopez-Gamboa fight.
Some people say that the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight hasn’t been made because Pacquiao doesn’t want it bad enough. But I think Arum could have already convinced him if he really wanted the fight. I think it’s like Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer sees it. He believes Arum is going to wait until the very last fight of Pacquiao’s career before he makes the fight.
In that way it won’t be a big deal if Pacquiao loses the fight, because it won’t hurt future pay-per-view because there won’t be anymore PPV fights because of his retirement. But if Pacquiao were to fight Mayweather now, Pacquiao would likely get beaten and and the money might go down dramatic from there.
Bradley has a real chance of beating Pacquiao in this fight, because Pacquiao has slipped a couple of notches in his last three fights. We’ve been seeing that in his performances lately against Shane Mosley, Antonio Margarito and Juan Manuel Marquez. But the fight against Marquez brought it out loud and clear that Pacquiao is starting to fade slowly but surely. If Marquez was able to fight as well as he did against Pacquiao, just imagine what a younger, faster and better inside fighter like Bradley can do to him. And the judges can’t keep giving Pacquiao wins in fights where he appears to have lost it. I think this time they’re going to get it right by giving the decision to Bradley. And I bet Arum will feel awful afterwards because the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will never happen then.
Comments are closed.