By Chris Williams: In one of the rare occasions where Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is sitting on the fence and not able to make a prediction for the winner of the fight, Arum says he doesn’t know who will come out on top in this Saturday’s fight between WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao and Tim Bradley.
Arum believes it’s a toss up fight at this point, because Pacquiao looked so bad in his last fight against Juan Manuel Marquez last November in Pacquiao’s questionable 12 round decision victory.
Arum said to Examiner.com “I think it’s an even fight. If Manny performs the same way that he did in the Marquez fight, Bradley will beat him.”
I totally agree, although I still don’t think Bradley will get the decision. If Marquez wasn’t given the decision after appearing to beat Pacquiao in their three fights together, then I don’t see it being any different with Bradley. I think there will always be a case where two of the judges give Pacquiao the decision unless Bradley knocks him out or knocks him down at least six times in the fight. It’ll probably have to be a really, really bad whipping that Bradley gives Pacquiao for him to be given a decision because I just see the judges pretty much giving Pacquiao the decision in this fight. This is also the thoughts of WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi. He doesn’t think Bradley will be given a decision over Pacquiao. I think he can get it, but like I said, it’ll probably take a TON of knock downs spaced out over the course of the fight for him to walk away with a win in this fight.
I believe Pacquiao will fight well enough to lose by at least four rounds, but he’ll still probably come out the winner when the judges’ scores are announced. I think Pacquiao is just lucky I guess. We just saw Brandon Rios get a win in a fight where pretty much everyone saw him losing the fight. I think Pacquiao will be the next one to win a decision like that.
I’m not surprised that Arum isn’t picking a winner in the Bradley-Pacquiao fight, because both guys fight for him and he obviously won’t want to upset either fighter by picking a winner. He’s merely being diplomatic about it so that he doesn’t hurt their feelings.
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