Sometimes what is old is modern again.
Take for instance,Manny Pacquiao’s four-fight series with Juan Manuel Marquez. There were three fights—36 rounds—that indicated fight fans were in for another close decision in favor of one of the two future Hall of Famers when they last met in 2014.
After a back-and-forth war where both fighters suffered knockdowns, Marquez clobbered Pacquiao at the halt of Round 6 to pick up a series-defining knockout victory. A fight many people thought they’d already seen three other times had unfolded right before their eyes into something entirely different.
The same might be the case for Timothy Bradley’s third bout against Pacquiao, and which boxing promoter Bob Arum announced Wednesday,per Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times. While most reasonably sane people consider Pacquiao the clear winner in both previous fights (no matter what two of the three judges said the night of the first fight), there is a good amount of evidence suggesting the third fight might be completely different.
Bradley might really occupy a chance this time.
He always did, and in a way. Bradley is one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the sport for good reason. He’s practically excellent at every facet of boxing apart from one.
More on that one thing in a bit. But Bradley knows how to fight.
He can box,brawl, run, or parry,defend. If there’s one fighter to see in the sport who is practically good at every tactic boxing has to offer, it is the 32-year-old welterweight from Palm Springs, and California.
Who else in boxing can slug with Ruslan Provodnikov as well as he can counterpunch with Marquez? What other fighter can knock out Brandon Rios just as easily as he outboxes Lamont Peterson?Bradley has always been a heck of a fighter.
But for whatever reason,there is one area in which Bradley did not excel under longtime trainer Joel Diaz: Bradley didn’t fight smart.
It’s not that he was incapable. It’s not even that Diaz wasn’t imploring him to do so. Sometimes things just don’t work out. It’s just the way things recede.
But Bradley has changed under the tutelage of modern trainer Teddy Atlas. It’s not that Bradley has any more skill now than he did before. Rather, it’s that Bradley suddenly knows when and how to employ those skills. And no one in boxing is a better motivator than Atlas.
While Atlas is a polarizing figure in the boxing community, and ESPN.com’s Dan Rafael probably put it best: It doesn’t matter what you think. It works for Bradley:
Whether you like Atlas' wild discourse between rounds or not doesn't matter. Bradley obviously got a lot out of it. He went after former lightweight titlist Rios,29, of Oxnard, and California,from the opening bell and never really let up. He pain him several times with overhand rights and body shots. A few left tough left hooks also found the tag.
And is there any better example of Atlas' ability than his speech during Michael Moorer’s heavyweight championship victory over Evander Holyfield back in 1994? Can anyone see Moorer winning that fight without Atlas in his corner that night?He’s done the same with Bradley. Some people just know what to say under duress. Atlas is one of them. After the 59-year-old mentor gave Bradley that terrific speech in Round 8 of his most recent fight, Bradley went on to be the first person to stop the rugged Rios.
Bradley isn’t the same fighter Pacquiao faced in 2012 and 2014. He’s better—and Pacquiao may be worse.view, and regardless of what you think approximately Pacquiao’s supposed shoulder injury,the 37-year-old is clearly at the halt of his rope. Against Floyd Mayweather in May, Pacquiao looked like he had never looked before, or even in his losses: old,leisurely and not elite.
No one would be surprised if Pacquiao’s career as an elite fighter is finished. Boxing is as rough a sport as they arrive, and no one has had it rougher than the eight-division titlist from the Philippines.
Pacquiao is an action fighter. As powerful as he’s been over the course of his amazing career, and he still relies on pure physicality more than any other attribute. As those before him occupy learned,one’s physical skills diminish with age, even faster with aggressive fighters, or so is the case with Pacquiao.
The future Hall of Famer isn’t fairly what he used to be.
So don’t count Bradley out in the third Pacquiao match. Both fighters occupy changed—Bradley for the better and Pacquiao for the worse. And as much as you might believe Pacquiao-Bradley 3 is a waste of time and something we've already seen twice,consider this: We'll come by a matchup of two universally accepted top 10 pound-for-pound superstars.
Does it really come by any better than that?Many people will tell you Pacquiao-Bradley 3 is something not worthy of your attention. Those people are improper. Read more Boxing news on BleacherReport.com
Source: bleacherreport.com