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Here's is the problem with that first fight: Even thou we all agree that Pacquiao won the first fight the only reason we think it was a lopsided victory its due to HBO's comentators.
I remember that at the end of each round these so call "Experts" would make it sound like Manny Pacquiao was obliterating Timothy Bradley. Round after round you will hear the same thing "Bradley's punches aren't doing anything to Manny Pacquiao while Pacquiao punches are pushing Tim back" as implying that punches that don't move you dont count, or that the only person inflicting real pain was Manny. Thanks to such comments, we, the audience, were misleaded into believe that Tim wasn't doing anything to win that fight, not even the competitve rounds, which saw him landing almost as many punches as Manny.
The irony is that, round after round, while I was feeling in "Awe!" with Manny's performance, I couldn't help feel that Manny Pacquiao was being cautiously passive against a powerless fighter he was totaly dominating. One that supposly wasn't bringing anything to the table. I kept asking myself "Why hasn't Manny finished Tim Bradley off? Why is he being so reluctant to finish the job?"
When Manny finaly decided to press the gas pedal I was 100% convinced that was it for Tim. Yet, there he was still, firing back with "firecrackers" instead of fireworks, and for some reason Manny still hadn't finished the job. It wasn't until HBO finaly decided to give one round to Bradley that I understood why.
Round ten was a round in which Tim pressed the action more than usual and Manny looked more passive than ever. Even thou I gave that round to Tim I couldn't help pondered: "How is that round much different than the other rounds? I knew Manny looked bad in it, but the only thing different in that round from the others was that Tim came out more agressive than before while Manny looked like he was taking a round off.
By the end of the fight I was impressed that Tim was still standing in there, but Dissapointed that Pac wasn't able to finish him off. I felt bad for Bradley, because I felt he didn't prove he belong in the same senstence with Pac, Mayweather and Cotto, and then someone read the scorecards....
A split decision for Timothy Bradley. How was that even possible? The judges had just robbed Manny of one of his best victories of his career. A dominating victory against a top 10 p4p fighter in his prime. Why do this to him now?
My next thought was "if they wanted to rob Manny at least they could have granted Marquez with that victory. After all Marquez had put one of his best perfomance of his rivarly with his career nemesis one fight ago. Why grant Bradley with an underserving victory just to get back at Pacquiao for things that are out of his control?
I was so convince that Pacquiao had totaly dominated that fight I didn't feel the need to review it. It wasn't until months later after Pacquiao's fourth fight with Marquez that I felt like watching Pac-Bradley all over again.
I was so broken hearted by the way Pacquiao's rivarly with Marquez had ended (That feeling when you acknowledge that the end of an era has come. That one of the most anticipated dream match in recent boxing memory won't happen thanks to this devastating defeat), I couldn't help blaming Pacquiao's last fight for his recklessnes against Marquez.
Pacquiao's last two fight regressed him to his past days when he used to go all in without measuring the consequences and this time, sadly, he finaly paid the price against his arch enemy.
More than a year has pass since Pac-Bradley and there I am reviewing Bradley's last recent fights while he prepares for Marquez. Until that point I had not watch his fight against the russian, or review his fight against Manny. The only reason I decided too review his last recent fights its because I needed a remainder of what he has done lately to objectively judge his next performance against the fighter who K.O. Pacquiao in an ultra competitive fight.
While I was watching Bradley-Provodnikov fight my reaction was "Manny never put Bradley in such trouble". Provodnikov just put the performance of his life against a reckless version of Bradley and still there Tim was, STANDING, FIRING BACK WITH FIRECRACKERS. It wasn't until that point that I realize "Manny would have totaly destroy Tim if it wasn't for this dude skills, toughness and accurate shots". If something you can learn from Provodnikov's face is that Tim does have some snap in his punches, and if it wasn't for this fight I wouldn't have never review Tim-Manny fight objectively.
So, after all the controversy: Team Bradley claming victory over Pacquiao and blaming HBO for putting the fans in his favor, and the boxing world, media, fans and Team Pacquiao claiming robbery and accusing Bradley of being the worse for holding on to a tittle didnt belong to him, here was I, once a fan totaly dissapointed by Tim's post-fight reaction, and denial of truth, finaly giving him the benefit of the doubt like a converterted witnessing his unfair boxin faith.
Acknowledging that if it wasn't for HBO's live broadcast comentators I probably would have enjoy the competitive nature of that fight as it happened without being mislead in favor of one fighter. What you didnt hear that day on PPV is that Round after round Bradley was standind, holding his ground while firing back and landing enough punches to at least contain the filipinos's legendary aggression.
When I finaly decided to review the tape, taking into account all the things that were said by both teams, and the media, for my surprise I noticed that Pacquiao's passiveness let a lot of rounds in the hands of the judges. That Pacquiao only was in full control of the fight when he decided to press the action, but if aggresive and passive are antonyms it makes you ponder: "Who is controling the fight when Manny isn't being aggresive? THe answer: Timothy Bradley.
When you review the fight you can see that for the first four rounds of the fight fight Manny rarely pressed the action, and that allowed Bradley to get back on the points on the scorecards. The judges may have interpreted Manny's reluctance to engage as Tim's craftyness takign a toll on Manny's game and so they gave him the edge in a couple of those rounds (And that's how Manny Pacquiao got robbed).
The problem is that regardless of what the HBO comentators said, the judges aren't there to measure power they are there to observe the whole landscape and decide who is doing the best job round per round.
The first thign you acknowledge if you are being objective is that Tim Bradley it's landing a lot of clean shots, regardless if his punches are soft, or not pushing his opponent back, neither if he looks like the one that is taking the hardest shots. A the end, clean shots its the main thing that matter for judges and it will be the first criteria taken into consideration. Things like effective agrresiveness, Ring generalship and defense can be a bit misleading and they almost comes as secondary due to the contrast in styles in a 10 point system that gives a lof of emphasize to accurate volume punches over skill.
But to put it in perspective, if you are making one of the greatest offensive boxers in boxing history look so cautious, you must be doing something right, true? That's call Ring GeneralShip even if the reason your opponets its being so passive is a personal choice that has nothing to do with your oppoent's skillset. And that's why my scorecard went from 11-1 in Manny's favor to 7-5 in Manny's favor. I kept asking myself "why its Manny not finishing the job?" and its because Timothy was proving to be fast and crafty enough to get his hands in Manny's face. You can say he wasn't hurting Manny, but he still was landing and you never know when one of those clean punches land like a bomb, and explote. Just like against Marquez...... (†).
The irony is that I wanted Manny to sucess so bad, that I still consciously forcing myself to give Manny the edge in that fight when in reality I only saw Manny winning 4 cleans rounds to Bradley's 10th round. The rest of the rounds Manny was coasting the majority of the time while Bradley was doing his best to go to work. So, while Manny looked in command every time he rarely decided to press the actions with his aggresiveness in those decisive rounds, Bradley would attempt to close the gap with his boxing skills as soon as Manny slowed down.
Dont get me wrong, Bradley didn't dominated Pacquiao in any way possible in that fight, but he did enough to put 7 rounds in the hands of the judges, and Manny Pacquiao is the only one to blame for that. Had he press the action since the start in that first fight there we won't been talking about this rematch today.
Jowey (Independ ONLINE amateur writer LOL)
Here's is the problem with that first fight: Even thou we all agree that Pacquiao won the first fight the only reason we think it was a lopsided victory its due to HBO's comentators.
I remember that at the end of each round these so call "Experts" would make it sound like Manny Pacquiao was obliterating Timothy Bradley. Round after round you will hear the same thing "Bradley's punches aren't doing anything to Manny Pacquiao while Pacquiao punches are pushing Tim back" as implying that punches that don't move you dont count, or that the only person inflicting real pain was Manny. Thanks to such comments, we, the audience, were misleaded into believe that Tim wasn't doing anything to win that fight, not even the competitve rounds, which saw him landing almost as many punches as Manny.
The irony is that, round after round, while I was feeling in "Awe!" with Manny's performance, I couldn't help feel that Manny Pacquiao was being cautiously passive against a powerless fighter he was totaly dominating. One that supposly wasn't bringing anything to the table. I kept asking myself "Why hasn't Manny finished Tim Bradley off? Why is he being so reluctant to finish the job?"
When Manny finaly decided to press the gas pedal I was 100% convinced that was it for Tim. Yet, there he was still, firing back with "firecrackers" instead of fireworks, and for some reason Manny still hadn't finished the job. It wasn't until HBO finaly decided to give one round to Bradley that I understood why.
Round ten was a round in which Tim pressed the action more than usual and Manny looked more passive than ever. Even thou I gave that round to Tim I couldn't help pondered: "How is that round much different than the other rounds? I knew Manny looked bad in it, but the only thing different in that round from the others was that Tim came out more agressive than before while Manny looked like he was taking a round off.
By the end of the fight I was impressed that Tim was still standing in there, but Dissapointed that Pac wasn't able to finish him off. I felt bad for Bradley, because I felt he didn't prove he belong in the same senstence with Pac, Mayweather and Cotto, and then someone read the scorecards....
A split decision for Timothy Bradley. How was that even possible? The judges had just robbed Manny of one of his best victories of his career. A dominating victory against a top 10 p4p fighter in his prime. Why do this to him now?
My next thought was "if they wanted to rob Manny at least they could have granted Marquez with that victory. After all Marquez had put one of his best perfomance of his rivarly with his career nemesis one fight ago. Why grant Bradley with an underserving victory just to get back at Pacquiao for things that are out of his control?
I was so convince that Pacquiao had totaly dominated that fight I didn't feel the need to review it. It wasn't until months later after Pacquiao's fourth fight with Marquez that I felt like watching Pac-Bradley all over again.
I was so broken hearted by the way Pacquiao's rivarly with Marquez had ended (That feeling when you acknowledge that the end of an era has come. That one of the most anticipated dream match in recent boxing memory won't happen thanks to this devastating defeat), I couldn't help blaming Pacquiao's last fight for his recklessnes against Marquez.
Pacquiao's last two fight regressed him to his past days when he used to go all in without measuring the consequences and this time, sadly, he finaly paid the price against his arch enemy.
More than a year has pass since Pac-Bradley and there I am reviewing Bradley's last recent fights while he prepares for Marquez. Until that point I had not watch his fight against the russian, or review his fight against Manny. The only reason I decided too review his last recent fights its because I needed a remainder of what he has done lately to objectively judge his next performance against the fighter who K.O. Pacquiao in an ultra competitive fight.
While I was watching Bradley-Provodnikov fight my reaction was "Manny never put Bradley in such trouble". Provodnikov just put the performance of his life against a reckless version of Bradley and still there Tim was, STANDING, FIRING BACK WITH FIRECRACKERS. It wasn't until that point that I realize "Manny would have totaly destroy Tim if it wasn't for this dude skills, toughness and accurate shots". If something you can learn from Provodnikov's face is that Tim does have some snap in his punches, and if it wasn't for this fight I wouldn't have never review Tim-Manny fight objectively.
So, after all the controversy: Team Bradley claming victory over Pacquiao and blaming HBO for putting the fans in his favor, and the boxing world, media, fans and Team Pacquiao claiming robbery and accusing Bradley of being the worse for holding on to a tittle didnt belong to him, here was I, once a fan totaly dissapointed by Tim's post-fight reaction, and denial of truth, finaly giving him the benefit of the doubt like a converterted witnessing his unfair boxin faith.
Acknowledging that if it wasn't for HBO's live broadcast comentators I probably would have enjoy the competitive nature of that fight as it happened without being mislead in favor of one fighter. What you didnt hear that day on PPV is that Round after round Bradley was standind, holding his ground while firing back and landing enough punches to at least contain the filipinos's legendary aggression.
When I finaly decided to review the tape, taking into account all the things that were said by both teams, and the media, for my surprise I noticed that Pacquiao's passiveness let a lot of rounds in the hands of the judges. That Pacquiao only was in full control of the fight when he decided to press the action, but if aggresive and passive are antonyms it makes you ponder: "Who is controling the fight when Manny isn't being aggresive? THe answer: Timothy Bradley.
When you review the fight you can see that for the first four rounds of the fight fight Manny rarely pressed the action, and that allowed Bradley to get back on the points on the scorecards. The judges may have interpreted Manny's reluctance to engage as Tim's craftyness takign a toll on Manny's game and so they gave him the edge in a couple of those rounds (And that's how Manny Pacquiao got robbed).
The problem is that regardless of what the HBO comentators said, the judges aren't there to measure power they are there to observe the whole landscape and decide who is doing the best job round per round.
The first thign you acknowledge if you are being objective is that Tim Bradley it's landing a lot of clean shots, regardless if his punches are soft, or not pushing his opponent back, neither if he looks like the one that is taking the hardest shots. A the end, clean shots its the main thing that matter for judges and it will be the first criteria taken into consideration. Things like effective agrresiveness, Ring generalship and defense can be a bit misleading and they almost comes as secondary due to the contrast in styles in a 10 point system that gives a lof of emphasize to accurate volume punches over skill.
But to put it in perspective, if you are making one of the greatest offensive boxers in boxing history look so cautious, you must be doing something right, true? That's call Ring GeneralShip even if the reason your opponets its being so passive is a personal choice that has nothing to do with your oppoent's skillset. And that's why my scorecard went from 11-1 in Manny's favor to 7-5 in Manny's favor. I kept asking myself "why its Manny not finishing the job?" and its because Timothy was proving to be fast and crafty enough to get his hands in Manny's face. You can say he wasn't hurting Manny, but he still was landing and you never know when one of those clean punches land like a bomb, and explote. Just like against Marquez...... (†).
The irony is that I wanted Manny to sucess so bad, that I still consciously forcing myself to give Manny the edge in that fight when in reality I only saw Manny winning 4 cleans rounds to Bradley's 10th round. The rest of the rounds Manny was coasting the majority of the time while Bradley was doing his best to go to work. So, while Manny looked in command every time he rarely decided to press the actions with his aggresiveness in those decisive rounds, Bradley would attempt to close the gap with his boxing skills as soon as Manny slowed down.
Dont get me wrong, Bradley didn't dominated Pacquiao in any way possible in that fight, but he did enough to put 7 rounds in the hands of the judges, and Manny Pacquiao is the only one to blame for that. Had he press the action since the start in that first fight there we won't been talking about this rematch today.
Jowey (Independ ONLINE amateur writer LOL)
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