Pacquiao Vs Bradley: Post Fight Fighter Assesment

[gamefrk]

Pacquiao Vs Bradley: Post Fight Fighter Assesment

Confidence

Bradley
Bradley Seemed the more confident of the 2 fighters before the fight. Was warming up in the dressing room way before the Beltran fight ended.

Pacquiao
Didn't look like the same "smiley" Pacman we've seen before fights. He looked a bit pale/serious. Pacman laced his gloves only after the Beltran fight was over (watch the fight again & you'll notice this, HBO showed Bradley was all laced up & warmed up in his locker while Pacman was getting his gloves laced up when the Beltran fight ended). This seemed really weird to me that Pacquiao was warming up without his gloves on.

Power

Bradley
He definitely had power in his wide swinging punches, he even hurt Pacquiao a little in one of the rounds (Pacquiao admitted to this when Kellerman asked him about this in the post fight interview). Apart from his wide swinging punches, Bradley didn't seem to have too much power in his punches (these punches didn't seem to worry Pacquiao).

Pacquaio
His punches did have enough power to hurt Bradley a few times. I agreed with Kellerman when he pointed out that Bradley seems hurt (I think this was twice/thrice in the fight).


Gameplan/Strategy

Bradley
Executed his game plan brilliantly in the first few rounds, landed good round winning shots & did not get careless. He landed very good clean overhand right hand shots throughout the early rounds. His head movement was excellent, he would go bend + go down low & bob/weave from left to right while Pacquiao tried to land and missed mostly. Something changed in the early middle rounds when he started swinging for the KO. Had Bradley not tried to get the KO (via swinging shots) he would have won the fight via UD IMO. Swinging for the KO made him look really silly at times when he was off balance. He took one or two rounds off too, this was when he was backing up way too much causing Pacquiao to chase him for majority of the round. Bradley should not have stayed on the ropes & invite Pacuqio to exchange, Pacquiao landed a 10 punch combo when Bradley was on the ropes. Not sticking to his game plan got him the loss.

Pacquiao
Pacman seemed clueless in the first 3-4 rounds, he couldn't figure Tim out maybe & this is where Tim landed punches & avoided Manny's. Once Manny was able to land the jab & left hand shots, his confidence seemed to grow. Manny didn't get careless as he never jumped Tim hence avoiding the Marquez type KO (Tim tried a LOT to set Manny up for that overhand right KO shot). Manny's game plan seemed like he wanted to box box box + land 1-2's 1-2's, he mostly did well when Tim was against the ropes, stationery or when Tim wanted to brawl. Paman definitely needs to learn to avoid body shots as well, he just stood there like a punching bag whenever Tim threw body punches & landed a LOT of them. Pacman did a very good job blocking most punches to the head with his gloves, good defence there when he's not moving his head.

Footwork

Bradley

Had good footwork for most of the fight when he landed punches + bent down low avoiding punches & got outside of range while Manny tried to land punches but missed most of them. Fought flat footed for a lot of the fight too. No complains about Tim's footwork overall except that he looked really silly when he was out of balance swinging for the KO shots.

Pacquiao

Manny showed nothing that we are used to seeing when it comes to footwork. We never got to see the footwork he displayed against Brandon Rios. Good footwork was displayed in the 2nd half of the fight. Manny too fought flat footed majority of the fight. If you were to judge Manny's performance just off his movement, I think he looked terrible, was stationery mostly + got hit by a lot of body shots. Based on his movement I think a lot of people will say that he's not the same Manny of old etc.

Combination punching

I think both guys did well in this department, not that we saw too many combos being thrown. Manny edged Tim when he was inviting Manny to exchange against the ropes, Pac landed a 10 punch combo on Tim. Other than that it was 1-2 1-2 combos by both fighters.

Changes in Pacquiao & Bradley from their last few fights

I think Pacquiao looked a little gun shy, did not want to exchange with Tim
(probably because Tim was swinging most of the time). I'm not sure of what the PunchStats say but I think Pac threw very few punches today as compared to his other fights. Pac himself doesn't seem like he wants to get into too many exchanges/brawls after Marquez KO'd him & I don't blame him for it. IMO Pac is gonna have a lot of trouble winning rounds against decent boxers who can land a few punches from the outside & avoid Manny's punches like Tim was able to. Manny is gonna face problems landing punches on fighters who bend down & bob+weave from left to right like Bradley did. Manny mostly seems to land punches when the other guy is stationery. I'd advice Pacuqiao & Bob Arum to make Pac fight guys who don't move too much from here on (Broner, Danny Garcia etc). I don't see Manny winning rounds against good boxers like Tim in the future. He will do well against power punchers who just look for the KO.

Bradley on the other hand fought well against Pacquiao but had the wrong gameplan when he was going for the KO. Tim should accept that he can't really KO people & should stick to boxing which he does really well IMO. If Tim sticks to his boxing & avoids the punches the way he does by going down low...it's going to be really hard for the other fighter to land cleanly on Tim & that's gonna frustrate him. I think Tim's career goes up & up from this point, he lost to the better man tonight...but he will look really good irrespective of who he fights...he will make the other guy miss & make him look silly. If Tim can stick to his boxing & avoid the brawling/exchanges/staying on the ropes to invite the guy to unload I think he wins almost all rounds just like Mayweather does. Tim NEEDS to be disciplined & just stick to his boxing right now, that's it.

Overall Summary

Confidence: Bradley more confident
Power: Pacquiao more powerful, still has decent power IMO
Gameplan/Strategy: Bradley+Joel Diaz had the better game plan. Pacquiao has stopped jumping in with the left hand like he did in previous fights & now he barely has any game/strategy going in forward/jumping forward aggressively.
Footwork: Pacman lacked the awesome footwork that he's used to showing us. Bradley's footwork was better today.
Combo punches: Manny was better
Speed: Manny had better handspeed, Tim wasn't that far behind though.
Who looks impressive in future fights?: Definitely Bradley, I see Manny losing too many rounds against decent boxers in future.

[gamefrk]

I request the admins to please move this to the Non Stop Boxing section, please?

[ghost deini]

i think you need to watch the fight again

[M Bison]

Bradley fan bias lmao!!
LOVE to see Khan fight Bradley too bad Timmeh ducked him like a *****.

[gamefrk]

On what points did you disagree?

PS: I'm not a Bradley fan. I can never be one unless he admits he lost the first fight against Manny via UD.

[CiganoBoxer]

Bradley fan bias lmao!!
LOVE to see Khan fight Bradley too bad Timmeh ducked him like a *****.

did he really ?

[Tarl of Bristol]

I have to disagree with your assessment on the fight or maybe there were two different fights last night between fighters named Timothy Bradley and Manny Pacquaio because in the one that I saw, it seemed as if Timothy Bradley started out with his gameplan but it crumbled sometime in the 3rd round. I guess Mike Tyson's old line was very prophetic last night, "everybody has a gameplan till they get punched in the mouth."

From what I saw, after Bradley got caught a couple times he resorted to trying to connect with haymakers because he wasn't gonna win a fight with multiple toe to toe exchanges, Pacquaio brought him back to reality when he caught him. This fight wasn't as close as the first one and Manny gave him a boxing lesson.

[gamefrk]

I have to disagree with your assessment on the fight or maybe there were two different fights last night between fighters named Timothy Bradley and Manny Pacquaio because in the one that I saw, it seemed as if Timothy Bradley started out with his gameplan but it crumbled sometime in the 3rd round. I guess Mike Tyson's old line was very prophetic last night, "everybody has a gameplan till they get punched in the mouth."

From what I saw, after Bradley got caught a couple times he resorted to trying to connect with haymakers because he wasn't gonna win a fight with multiple toe to toe exchanges, Pacquaio brought him back to reality when he caught him. This fight wasn't as close as the first one and Manny gave him a boxing lesson.

You trolling or what?

You just agreed with everything I said.

[M Bison]

Okay to break it down -

Confidence -
I personally think you're reading into it way too much, Pacquiao has always been a straight to business type of guy and he done his smiling once the business was done in the ring.

If anything when is the last time you've seen Bradley try to mock someone into engaging him whilst against the ropes?
Its a very uncharacteristic of him and being with everything that has been said Bradley wasn't the only person out to prove something, how would you like someone to say you're too old you've not got it anymore?
That's what Bradley said to Pacquiao If anything I think the 'confidence' was more than their from both fighters but if anything the person being less like himself would be Bradley.

Power -
Pacman certainly has power but coming up as many weight classes as he has I think its very notable to say that bringing power up from the lower weight classes when you're naturally not a big man.

Bradley looked in amazing shape as always but those wild shots aren't really good against someone who has the speed and ability to time them which if you're a world class boxer shouldn't be too difficult he just simply isn't a big puncher but he did look strong at the weight.

Gameplan -
I think its fair to say Bradley is a very slick fighter and he was moving very well in the ring (don't believe he pulled a calve muscle) but he certainly wasn't taking full advantage of making Pacquiao miss and at time he'd spend too much doing the bobbing and weaving without throwing anything at Pacquiao so thus he found himself eventually taking some shots (you can't dodge everything) and the simple fact he wasn't countering like he should with short crisp punches it meant Pacquiao could easily either block or move out of the way of them.

I also think the simple fact Pacquiao was pressing the action and not waiting on Bradley to make his move was and is the way to beat Bradley.
JMM was willing to let Bradley control the tempo of the fight thus in my opinion losing him the fight end of the day styles make fights just because Bradley beats JMM and Pacquiao has full out wars with him doesn't mean Bradley is going to be the better boxer.

Future of both fighters -
I do believe Bradley will go on and do good things I however do not believe he will capture the height his career was at before the second encounter with Manny.
He will likely have some wars with people and his inability to counter and keep fighters off of him will likely either maybe see him being TKO'd or beat via UD you just never know.

Pacquiao still has some of the good but he has declined somewhat but with him likely only going to fight on for a few more years I don't think its going to harm him the only fighters from 140-147 that I see maybe giving him problems is JMM and Mayweather but theirs plenty of good scalps waiting for him in the shape of -
Danny Garcia
Maidana
Thurman
JMM/Alvarado (winner of the two)

[Tarl of Bristol]

You trolling or what?

You just agreed with everything I said.

No I dont do that. However I should've been more specific in what I disagreed with because after re-reading your post, we do agree on a bit.

Yeah I do agree with almost all your post. My bad, I didn't mean to come off like a JO so excuse me if thats how i came off in my previous post.

What I disagreed with in your post is in regard to Manny's footwork and his movement. I don't think it was a slip off but I think he was bracing because Timothy was swinging for the fences. There were times when Manny's lateral movement was there and his footwork too. I think he was just being careful as well as conserving a little for the stretch run because he seemed fairly fresh after 12 while Timothy looked spent.