Koncz says Pacquiao not interested in Bradley rematch

By Boxing News - 10/15/2013 - Comments

pac453By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (31-0, 12 KO’s) may have made a big mistake by turning down a big money rematch with Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) in order to fight 40-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez, because the interest from Pacquiao’s side in a rematch with Bradley is no longer there, at least for now.

Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz is saying that the Bradley-Marques fight was a boring one, and that he and Pacquiao aren’t interested in a rematch with Bradley right now. Whether that will change in the future is unknown.

Koncz said to Manila Bulletin “It [Bradley vs. Marquez] was a very boring fight. As we expected, Bradley did not show anything that warrants anything more than a $5 million purse. [Bradley received a $6 million purse when he fought Pacquiao last year]. At this point in time we’re not interested in Bradley.”

It looks like it’s going to be Bradley’s turn to wait for a fight, and there’s no telling if he’ll get the rematch with Pacquiao. Their fight last year brought in less than expected PPV numbers, and it’s doubtful that a rematch will do much better. The problem that Bradley has is he doesn’t bring a huge fan base like Pacquiao’s other opponents like Marquez and Miguel Cotto.

That means that Pacquiao has to do all the heavy lifting himself by attracting fans, and Bradley’s not a big enough name to pump up Pacquiao’s PPV numbers to the 1.4 to 1.5 million buys rate. It’ll take a big name for Pacquiao to get to that level.

A rematch between Pacquiao and Bradley won’t be a good deal for Pacquiao because we saw how Bradley fought Marquez and how he fought Pacquiao last year. Bradley essentially moved for 12 rounds, rarely mixing it, and throwing a lot of jabs in a safety first fight. It’ll be tough for Pacquiao if he fights Bradley again because he’ll have to chase him around the ring for 12 rounds, and it’ll end up with a fight that will be less interesting to watch.

Some boxing fans really loved the Bradley-Marquez fight last week and saw it as a fight of the year candidate, but it looked incredibly boring from what I saw of it. If you compare to exciting fights like Bradley vs. Ruslan Provodnikov and Mike Alvarado vs. Brandon Rios I, there was no comparison. Bradley fought a safety first fight against Marquez, and that in turn doesn’t appear to have endeared him to Koncz and Pacquiao in trying to get a rematch.

Bradley should have went all out to make his fighting style exciting because there was a lot on the line in the fight besides just getting the win. If you’ve got a boring fighting style like Bradley, then you need to make sure that you go all out to make yourself more exciting instead of doing the opposite. What we saw from Bradley vs. Marquez was very boring in my view, and I won’t be surprised if Pacquiao forgets about ever facing Bradley again. I’m sure their mutual promoter Bob Arum wouldn’t mind seeing a rematch between Pacquiao and Bradley, but he should realize that it wouldn’t be a good people-pleasing fight, and that Pacquiao would be the one pulling in all the fans.



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