Show and Prove: Manny Pacquiao vs Timothy Bradley

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On Saturday, 1 of the best fighters of our generation, Manny Pacquiao will be in the ring defending his WBO Welterweight Belt vs. undefeated challenger Timothy Bradley at the MGM in Vegas. Today I’ll be going over the entire exciting card that night that will feature such names as WBA Super Bantamweight Champion Guillermo Rigondeaux vs. Teon Kennedy, promising Welterweight Mike Young vs. the power punching veteran Randall Bailey, as well as 2 other fights involving some lesser known, but talented fighters.

Manny “Pac Man” Pacquiao (54-3-2 with 38 KOs) is at worst a top 3, and more than a few say #1, P4P fighter in the world today. However, with all due respect to Manny, this fight is going to be all about his opponent, Timothy “Desert Storm” Bradley (28-0 with 12 KOs). However, before we get to Bradley, let’s talk about the current champion and the other half of what is to be the “Megafight” of boxing. The Philippines born, Manny Pacquiao is not a fighter that will talk trash or play the villain role, he’s liked by pretty much everyone that isn’t a Mayweather fan. He’s a very aggressive, southpaw, high volume puncher that finds a way to throw constant punches from all angles to confuse his opponents and pressure them to make decision on the fight to counter his style. He is an 8 division champion, spanning all the way from Flyweight, at 107, to now Welterweight, at 147. He has only lost once since 1999, that being a close unanimous decision to Erik Morales in 2005, other than that, he has been the picture of flawlessness. Manny is also a politician in the Philippines, so I’m not sure how much longer we will be seeing Manny in the ring if he wants to continue with his political career, I’m guessing that he’ll be fighting for 2-3 more years max.

The reason why this fight has not created the “buzz” that a Mayweather-Cotto fight generated is because the casual boxing fan, that just catches the superstars, doesn’t really know who Bradley is, well let me introduce you. Timothy Bradley is a very good technical fighter that doesn’t have too much KO power, but is a skilled almost any other fighter you will find in the ring. He’s coming off a fight against Joel Casamayor, who was 40 at the time, but still a competitive fighter. Bradley’s best wins have been against Lamont Peterson, in which he dominated, and against Devon Alexander, in which Alexander was hit with a head butt in the 3rd rd that opened a cut, and then another headbutt in rd 10, where Alexander could not continue. One thing you will find out about Bradley is he knows how to use his head, almost everyone of his fights, he has caught his opponent with and “accidental” head butt, Peterson was also hit with one in the 12th rd of that fight. Another headbutt also happened in his fight against Nate Campbell, which at 1st was ruled a TKO, and then overruled later. Not saying that all Bradley does is throw headbutts, because he’s a very technically sound fighter, but let’s just say that Victor Ortiz may have hyped himself up for the Mayweather fight by watching a Bradley fight.

Most of the people picking Bradley in this fight are doing so because they see 24/7 and it makes it look like Pacquiao isn’t taking this as seriously as usual. They look at his body and he may not be as cut up as they are used to seeing from Manny. However, I am by the belief that, even though the saying is everyone has a punchers chance, Bradley has no chance. Three reasons I say he has no chance are, 1, I just think Manny is the more skilled fighter and is more powerful, 2, Bradley doesn’t have that KO power that will either make Pacquiao hesitate or scared to come at him hard, and 3, even if Bradley does win 7, or 8, and maybe even 9 rounds, I just feel there isn’t a change that judges give him the victory. The “Megafight” has boxing hostage right now when it comes to any fight involving Pacquiao or Mayweather, anyone getting into the ring against them knows they either have to knock them down a couple times or they lose. Because of this, I say Bradley tries to be extra aggressive, and gets caught by a Pacquiao left hook and gets KO’d in round 10.

Another 1 of the championship fights this night is between Guillermo “The Jackal” Rigondeaux and Teon Kennedy. Rigondeaux is 1 of the most decorated amateur fighters of all time, with almost 400 fights, 2 Olympic golds, 2 World Championship golds, 2 World Cup golds, a Pan American Gold, and a Central American and Caribbean Games gold. He defected from Cuba in 2009 and has since gone 9-0 with 7 KOs. Teon Kennedy (17-1-2 with 7 KOs) is an impressive young fighter, but he isn’t in the same class as Rigondeaux. I expect Guillermo to try to put on an impressive show to just give Nonito Donaire, the guy he’s been calling out, a sample of what he can do. Rigondeaux wins by TKO in round 8.

Another 1 of the 3 championship fights on the PPV will involve Mike Jones (26-0 with 19 KOs) vs. “The Knock-Out King” Randall Bailey (42-7 with 36 KOs) for the vacant IBF Welterweight title. Jones will be the favorite in this one and is expected to beat the 37 year old Bailey, but I was in the Garden during Mike Jones last fight, and he didn’t impress me at all. I thought it was closer than the scores indicated and I am in the minority in thinking Bailey, who is a powerful puncher, will win this. Now this is 1 of those classic, 1 fighter wins early or the other one wins by decision, and I’m picking Bailey to beat Jones by TKO, if it gets anywhere past round 7, the other Bailey may not have the energy to get the KO late. So for this one, I’m going with Bailey to upset Jones in the 6th by TKO.

There are 2 more fights on the card that should be entertaining to watch. With the 1st of the fights involving, Mexican born, Jorge “Travieso” Arce (60-6-2 with 46 KOs) vs. Puerto Rican born, Jesus Rojas (18-1-1 with 13 KOs). I actually think Rojas is a good young talent, and this is a step up to show himself on the big stage, but the experience of Arce should win this fight. He should be able to use his ring savvy to control how the fight goes and then turn up the pressure enough to either win by decision or by TKO late. So my pick on this is Arce by unanimous decision.

The other fight on the card is, young up and coming Canadian fighter, Mikael Zewski (14-0 with 10 KOs) vs. John Ryan Grimaldo (8-1 with 5 KOs). I haven’t seen Grimaldo live, just off of scouting reports he is an average fighter that will put up a good fight but Zewski is a more skilled fighter in my opinion from the little I’ve seen of him. He has good power and some raw technical skills, I expect him to win this by decision, in this 8 round bout.

This should be a fun night of fights that leaves that has some big possibilities for a few upsets. I advice you to turn in, if not for the names, for the great talent and skill that all of these performers have.