So, many things to discuss, but one thing is very important to get out of the way first.
This isn’t Timothy Bradley’s fault. While Manny Pacquiao did little to nothing to help the promotion of this fight, Bradley went out of the way to make the fight interesting, before they stepped into the ring.
Many, myself included thought he would pull off the upset, but just not in this way.
Casual boxing fans many times use the term “robbery” in the wrong context. For example, Juan Manual Marquez has never been robbed against Manny Pacquiao, he has just been on the wrong end of some very close fights.
When a fight is close, but it appears clear one fighter has won, people claim robbery, but that simply isn’t the case. What happened tonight though was a robbery.
How bad was it?
By the 11th round I was talking about how Bradley’s trainer sounded like a character on Next Friday (Baby Joker).
I gave Tim Bradley four rounds in the fight and he won those four rounds in my eyes not because he did anything spectacular but because he was just more active.
You would be hard pressed to fight anyone who could find 7 rounds to give to Bradley besides the two judges who awarded Bradley the victory.
Bradley knows he lost. How many boxers do you know say they need to review the tape to confirm if they won the fight?
It was just an atrocious decision, but I have to debunk one conspiracy theory.
Pacquiao was never going to fight Floyd Mayweather in 2012, so the outcome of this fight was irrelevant to that. Win, lose or draw Pacquiao was going to fight in November and Mayweather isn’t getting out of jail until August at the earliest so it wasn’t going to happen.
Pacquiao’s contractual obligations with Top Rank are an interesting topic, some are saying he only has one more fight before he can leave Bob Arum, but that hasn’t been confirmed.
What is confirmed is that Pacquiao and Bradley rematch means more in house money for Bob Arum and Top Rank, so take that for what it is worth.
Boxing isn’t dead, because if it was dead no one would care and trust me people care, but it is hard to take the sport seriously when such errors are being made on a consistent basis.
Boxing’s credibility once again has been KOed.
Here are the official scorecard.