By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has been looking in on both of his fighters WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao and Tim Bradley as they get prepared to fight on June 9th on HBO pay-per-view at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Arum likes what he’s been seeing of both guys, and believes that they’re almost ready to go at it on June 9th.

Arum told the Manila Buletin “Pacquiao and Bradley are almost ready to go.”

Pacquiao reportedly punished a sparring badly during a recent sparring session, causing the sparring partner to be sent home. It’s unknown who the guy is, but it likely wasn’t Pacquiao’s #1 sparring partner Ruslan Provodnikov, who was specifically picked out by Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach because he felt he had a similar fighting style as Bradley.

I’m still scratching my head and wondering how Roach can see Provodnikov as being similar to Bradley, because they seem worlds apart from my perspective. I had Provodnikov losing to journeyman DeMarcus Corley in their recent fight, and Roach would have probably been better off picking Corley as one of Pacquiao’s sparring partners than he was choosing Provodnikov. I don’t see Corley as being anything like Bradley, but he’s more like Bradley in my eyes than Provodnikov.

The Bradley-Pacquiao fight will tell us a lot about what Pacquiao has left. He looked like he’s starting to lose his skills in his last fight against Juan Manuel Marquez, and if Pacquiao has another performance like he did last time, it could be confirmed. Pacquiao hasn’t looked really good since he defeated Miguel Cotto three years ago in their catchweight championship fight for the WBO 147 pound title, although the fight wasn’t held at the full weight for the division.

Pacquiao’s legs have started to slow down on him as of late, and he’s more of a slow shuffler than the fighter that used to hop around from side to side earlier in his career.