By Chris Williams: I was one of many boxing fans disappointed by watching such inept first episode of the Pacquiao-Bradley 24/7 series last Saturday night on HBO. As far as I can tell, that was the worst episode I’ve ever seen in the 24/7 series, and I think Bradley and Pacquiao are putting their fight in danger of bringing in low, low pay-per-view numbers unless they get on the ball and start selling the fight.

Both guys are playing it too nice, and it’s incredibly boring. Pacquiao’s talking the bible, looking contrived with what appears to be damage control from the recent uproar over his stance on not agreeing that gays should get married. And for his part, Bradley spent too much time talking about his family, and how hard he had it when he was growing up. We’ve already heard that kind of stuff in the past from other fighters. Bradley needs to come up with some kind of Mayweather-esque persona and trash talking to start building interest in the fight. Whatever he has to do, Bradley needs to show his teeth and start dissecting Pacquiao. Just talking niceness is dull to the extreme.

Pacquiao also needs to start helping out, because he can’t expect Bradley to do all the heavy lifting himself in making the fight a success. If Pacquiao wants to match Mayweather’s recent 1.5 million PPV buys, he’s got to start opening his trap and/or showing some meanness. In watching Pacquiao, I get the sense I’m watching a politician who’s trying to come across as a really good guy. I can understand when he’s on the job, but not when he’s trying to sell a fight.

Pacquiao is supposed to be making this interesting and he needs to start going off and showing some emotions instead of the wooden exterior. That kind of thing needs to be brought out by the HBO producer of the 24/7 series. This person needs to whip some emotions out of these guys to get them in character. The producer needs to get some raw emotions out of these guys. He may need to explain the Stanislavski method to them to get reactions that are needed to sell this fight, because both of them put me to sleep last Saturday.