The limitations in the boxing world create a lot of rematches, which means that Manny Pacquiao will face Timothy Bradley a second time for his next fight, hoping that this time he won’t be the victim of the worst scoring judges performance we’ve seen in the last few years.
The two will fight each other on April 12 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, almost two years after Bradley won their first bout in the same venue through a shocking split decision, robbing Pacquiao of a 7-year undefeated streak and of the less important WBO Welterweight title.
According to Bob Arum, Pacquiao is guaranteed $20 million from this deal,which is $6 million lower than what he was promised for the first fight between the two; Bradly will receive $6 million, $1 million more than his cut from the first bout between the two that had somewhere between 700,000 to 900,000 buys on PPV, depending on who you believe. Both fighters will get a cut out of that money as well, obviously.
Duane Ford and C.J. Ross were the ringside officials giving Bradly the 115-113 win last time on the scorecards; Jerry Roth had it 115-113 for Pacquiao and even that was too close for many. That result shook boxing for a short while and for good reason, because the fight wasn’t nearly as close as even the Roth scorecard called it. The WBO held an independent review of the video and all judges scored it for Pacquiao. Arum asked for the Nevada attorney general to investigate the judges, although that turned up nothing.
Some believe that if Pacquiao would have won that fight, he wouldn’t have gotten into a fourth battle with Juan Manuel Marquez, resulting in a loss via knockout. Floyd Mayweather said after the loss that there’s no chance he’ll fight Manny Pacquiao now, but it’s hard to believe he ever intended that to happen.
Bradley? Instead of getting a huge boost in his reputation from that fight, he remained in the same level. A very skilled and still undefeated fighter, but not becoming a bigger name or attraction than he was before. He fought twice in 2013; beating Ruslan Provodnikov in an epic fight ending in 12 rounds and for some reason was called as a unanimous decision (was a lot closer than that), and last October beating Juan Manuel Marquez in 12 rounds also via a UD in a much more one-sided bout.
Bradley had the chance to turn down the fight and hope to get into business with Golden Boy and Showtime which would have meant fighting Floyd Mayweather next, but preferred signing a new contract with Top Rank, which pretty much ends his chance of fighting Mayweather in the near future. The world of boxing is stuck due to too many fighters being unable to fight each other with money and promotions getting in the way. At least there’s actually something to prove in this fight: Pacquiao that the fight over Rios wasn’t some sort of swan song to an illustrious career, while Bradley needs to show he can win without the judges swaying the fight in his direction blatantly.
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