https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY7o3BxV6FM

By Chris Williams: Nacho Beristain, the trainer for Juan Manuel Marquez, expects Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) to defeat Tim Bradley (31-1-1, 13 KOs) in their fight next month on April; 9 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Beristain feels that unless Bradley improves dramatically from the two previous fights he’s had with Pacquiao, he’ll likely lose the fight.

Despite Bradley now being trained by Teddy Atlas, who seems to have made remarkable improvements in his game, Beristain sees him as the same fighter he’s been in the past.
Beristain thinks Pacquiao chose the 31-year-old Bradley for his fight because he doesn’t want to retire off of a loss by fighting someone else.

This is the same thing that a lot of boxing fans seem to think. Many of them believe that the main reason why Pacquiao steered clear of Terence Crawford, Amir Khan and Adrien Broner was because he didn’t want to get beaten and have a loss wreck his hopes of getting elected into the senate in the Philippines in the May elections.

“No, I don’t think Bradley will have a greater opportunity [to win], because Bradley is the same [fighter] – with that stinking, fast and difficult style,” said Beristain via ESPN Deportes. “In addition to being a good fighter, Pacquiao is a responsible fighter, professional. He is not going to walk away [from boxing] with a loss, so he chose Bradley,” said Beristain.

I don’t think it’s going to help Pacquiao even in him hand-picking Bradley, because he really has improved and he’ll fix the mistakes he made in their second fight. Bradley knew a long time ago what he did wrong in his loss to Pacquiao from 2014. He knew he lost because he stayed stationary and fought Pacquiao’s fight.

However, Bradley had an injured calf muscle in that fight, and he couldn’t move even if he wanted to. His legs wouldn’t allow him to be mobile in that fight. This time, things will be different because Bradley is healthy 100 percent for the fight. Bradley also has Teddy Atlas training him, and he’s going to make sure that Bradley fights smart.

“Bradley is a good fighter but we all know who will win unless Bradley becomes a different fighter than what he has shown throughout his career,” said Beristain.

Bradley will be a different fighter this time around. If he follows the instructions by Atlas to stay mobile, he’ll likely out-box Pacquiao just like he did in his first fight with the Filipino star. Pacquiao isn’t the same fighter he was in 2012, and Bradley hasn’t lost a thing. Bradley is the same fighter physically, and he’s a much better fighter with the help of trainer Atlas.

Pacquiao is going to struggle badly with the improvements that Bradley has made in his game, and I see this being an even more one-sided fight than Pacquiao’s last fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. Bradley has that blueprint to study, and you can bet that he’s going to be memorizing every part of that fight in order to beat Pacquiao again.

It might be bad for Beristain if Bradley is able to do what his fighter Marquez was able to do by knocking Pacquiao out. I think Bradley has a good chance of getting a knockout in this fight if he’s able to time Pacquiao when he’s rushing forward looking to throw a wild punch.