By Ian S Palmer
The much anticipated rematch between Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley will take place this Saturday, April 12 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The 12-round welterweight bout can be seen across North America on HBO’s pay-per-view network and is for Bradley’s WBO world title. This is a rematch of their 2012 bout in which Bradley won a highly controversial split decision. Most fans and boxing experts felt Pacquiao won the bout hands down, but two of the official judges saw things differently.
The 35-year-old Pacquiao of General Santos City in the Philippines will climb through the ring ropes with a record of 55-5-2 with 38 Kos while Bradley of Palm Springs, California is unbeaten with a perfect 31-0 record along with 12 Kos. While both of these fellows have some excellent boxing skills neither of them has scored a knockout in quite some time. However, they’re both exciting fighters.
The last time Bradley managed to stop an opponent was back in November of 2011 when he beat Joel Casamayor of Cuba by an eighth-round TKO. However, that is the only knockout he’s scored in the past seven years. Pacquiao, who has more natural power than Bradley, last scored a KO over Miguel Cotto of Puerto Rico in the 12th round in 2009. .
It doesn’t appear that Bradley has the power to do any serious damage to Pacquiao, but since he’s been on the canvas a few times during his career, Pacquiao’s chin is now somewhat questionable and anything could happen if Bradley managed to land a perfect shot. Bradley has been severely tested lately by the likes of Ruslan Provodnikov and Juan Manuel Marquez and has shown that he can take a hell of a punch. Therefore, it’s likely that this bout will end up going the distance.
Pacquiao, a southpaw, doesn’t really need to change anything from the first fight with Bradley since he basically dominated the proceedings. He just didn’t get credit for it. He should have no problem being motivated for this meeting and that could spell trouble for Bradley. Also, the judges may want to subconsciously make amends to Pacquiao for being robbed in the first fight. They could somehow try to compensate for the terrible judging in that bout by scoring close rounds in this one for Pacquiao.
Bradley will obviously want to prove that he was a worthy winner the first time around and the best way to do that will be to win this fight in a convincing manner. But to do that he’ll have to dominate this contest or by hurting or dropping Pacquiao somewhere along the way. If he isn’t able to do that, then his chances of winning a second straight decision don’t appear to be too good.
Pacquiao is certainly in the twilight of his boxing career at the moment, but he’s still got enough speed, power and boxing skills to take care of Bradley. He’s simply the more talented of the two. Bradley has proven to be quite a durable fighter, but the first fight showed that he couldn’t really handle Pacquiao’s speed and movement in the ring.
Bradley did manage to land some decent counter shots, but not much else. He’s more cautious than Pacquiao, but to beat him again he needs to initiate the action. That’s not likely to happen though since it will be Pacquiao who takes the fight to Bradley. When all is said and done about this much hyped fight look for Pacquiao to have his arm raised in victory via a unanimous decision.
