WHEN we broke the news that eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao had chosen to fight Timothy “Desert Storm” Bradley for a third time on April 9 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, many fight fans questioned the decision and claimed it was an unattractive proposition when there were so many other more attractive opponents for Manny to choose from.
For one thing, although Manny lost the first fight to Bradley in a horrendous decision, which was universally criticized and whipped Bradley in the rematch, it seemed a pointless exercise and any attempt to hype a third fight would be a near hopeless task.
Even promoter Bob Arum has admitted that much even though it’s obvious that the Top Rank promoter stands to benefit the most from the trilogy because he handles both Pacquiao and Bradley and will earn from both sides, which gives the impression that he, not Manny Pacquiao, ultimately makes the decision on who Pacquiao should fight.
Adrien Broner, who was contacted by Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz about a possible fight with Manny was visibly angry when he learned that he had been junked in favor of Bradley and ripped Bob Arum for being greedy and wanting to keep the fight in-house, which isn’t far-fetched.
A Pacquiao-Broner fight would have been something new and attractive rather than Manny fighting Bradley, whom he obviously beat twice, one more time.
There were others like Amir Khan and Danny Garcia who would have probably brought in bigger pay-per-view numbers.
Of course, Arum and his team will play on the fact that Bradley scored an impressive 9th-round TKO over Brandon “Bam Bam” Rios in his last fight, while Pacquiao was taken the full route by Rios, although Manny won comfortably.
Let’s get real. Rios was nowhere near the fighter, who had trained so hard for the Pacquiao fight when he faced Bradley.
Some early body shots showed his comparative lack of condition and the end came as no big surprise.
They will also seek to play up the role of Bradley’s new coach Teddy Atlas as a motivating factor and someone who changed Bradley for the better. It’s true to some extent that under Atlas, Bradley realized that he was a better boxer and not someone who could bang with a puncher like Pacquiao.
Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach, who tends to shoot his mouth off at every turn ruined this scenario when he dissed the contribution of Atlas.
We honestly believe a showdown with Amir Khan would have been be far more interesting considering that they were stablemates and sparring partners under Roach at the Wild Card Gym before, but dismiss the claim by Roach that Pacquiao dropped Khan four times in sparring as one of Freddie’s tales that have no basis in fact.
What we know is that Amir Khan’s speed caused Pacquiao some problems.
The sad thing about this is that when Manny and his adviser Michael Koncz met with Khan in a London Gym early in 2015 they agreed to face each other in late 2015, but the hugely lucrative “Fight of the Century” against Floyd Mayweather Jr. intervened and setback the planned fight between Pacquiao and Khan.
In fact, Koncz had subsequent dealings with Khan’s handlers in pursuing a fight after Manny lost to Mayweather last May 2. But they suddenly discarded the idea and eventually settled for Bradley, failing to realize that a Khan showdown would almost certainly have been far more interesting with many story-lines to build on and would have attracted a bigger pay-per-view market.
Bottom line is, we’ll have to live with Pacquiao-Bradley III. To us, Manny’s run for a seat in the Senate seems more interesting than a Bradley trilogy.