Pacquiao vs. Bradley 6/9

[cowboyronnie]

Watching the post-fight...Manny is such an awesome guy. "My best wasn't good enough" and then Kellerman says to Bradley, "still undefeated, the biggest win of your career...", to which Manny smiles genuinely and pats Bradley on the shoulder. WTF? Who is that gracious?

[cowboyronnie]

So, yeah, just re-watched a random round - the 11th, and HBO definitely did just get wrapped up in their narrative. Virtually nothing landed that round aside from a couple hard body shots by Bradley and one single head shot to Bradley. Great defense and angling from both guys. But Lampley concludes, "another good round for Pacquaio, he's landed several hard power shots".

Maybe, maybe you could then justify giving Bradley the last 3 and 2-3 others earlier, I guess.

[Butch718]

Technically, still undefeated. But in reality, almost everyone knows the deal. Bradley is 28-1. Dude's record will forever have an asterisk next to it. He'll never live it down unless he legitimately beats Pacquiao.

And it's funny because people actually think it's an act with Manny. I actually think he's being genuine with his sportsmanship. I just think that next time he won't be so gracious and absolutely destroy this guy in the ring. No reason to leave it in the hands of these corrupt judges.

[HasheemThabeet]

I don't think Pac can knockout Bradley at this stage of his career to be honest

[Butch718]

I think he could. He just lets his opponents off the hook. He did it with Margarito and Cotto. During the Margarito fight he took his foot off the gas pedal because he simply didn't want to hurt him anymore. During the Cotto fight, he carried Miguel from the 10th round on before Bayless stopped the fight in the 12th round. It's just the way he is nowadays. During the Bradley fight, I think he got complacent after the 9th round and felt that he had the fight under control. He's been lacking that killer instinct the last couple of years. I think after this travesty, he has every incentive to want to beat Bradley in a much more convincing fashion. Like I said, this just may be the thing that lights a fire under his ass.

[GS Warriors 1]

I had it 9-3 for Pacquiao.

I can't see how anyone would have Bradley as the winner. Duane Ford said Bradley gave him a boxing lesson? Bullsh*t. He looked outclassed in this fight. He's a good, solid fighter but Bradley is not on Pacquiao's level. This was a very bad decision but unfortunately, you can argue that this isn't even the worst scorecard of 2012. There have been a couple other shocking decisions this year. I agree with some here, I think Pacquiao goes for the KO in the rematch and I think he'll get it.

[cowboyronnie]

I had it 9-3 for Pacquiao.

I can't see how anyone would have Bradley as the winner. Duane Ford said Bradley gave him a boxing lesson? Bullsh*t. He looked outclassed in this fight. He's a good, solid fighter but Bradley is not on Pacquiao's level. This was a very bad decision but unfortunately, you can argue that this isn't even the worst scorecard of 2012. There have been a couple other shocking decisions this year. I agree with some here, I think Pacquiao goes for the KO in the rematch and I think he'll get it.

Agree.

HBO's commentary seemed off here, again; Lampley claimed this the worst decision in like 30+ years.

Have Kellerman/Lampley/ES re-watched and responded to the criticism of their commentary? Because they absolutely did get carried away. It influenced me, I'll admit.

I'm not gonna re-watch the fight or anything, but looking back through it in my mind's eye...I don't think there was necessarily corruption in the judging. There certainly may have been. But maybe there's a chance they reached those decisions in good faith. Bad judgment, good faith.

[Butch718]

Ticket brokers are already telling Arum that no one wants to see a rematch and that they would have an extremely difficult time marketing the fight. You know at first I thought people were going to watch a rematch no matter what. After all, controversy sells right? But now, I'm not so sure. I actually think this may have pushed the casual fans pass their threshold.

And yes, this wasn't the worse decision of 2012. The Abril/Rios fight was worse.

[Butch718]

Agree.

HBO's commentary seemed off here, again; Lampley claimed this the worst decision in like 30+ years.

Have Kellerman/Lampley/ES re-watched and responded to the criticism of their commentary? Because they absolutely did get carried away. It influenced me, I'll admit.

I'm not gonna re-watch the fight or anything, but looking back through it in my mind's eye...I don't think there was necessarily corruption in the judging. There certainly may have been. But maybe there's a chance they reached those decisions in good faith. Bad judgment, good faith.

This isn't directed towards you, but it bothers me when I hear people saying that HBO's commentary may have influenced people's reactions. They're Pacquiao homers, I know. Granted there are those that will be swayed by commentary. That being said, I think the majority of the public knows a bad decision when they see one. I had friends who watched the fight at a bar, with no sound from HBO's commentary, just music blaring in the background. They all thought Pacquiao won easily. On top of that, 48 out of 51 journalist at ringside all had Pacquiao winning by a wide margin. None of them were able to hear the HBO crews commentary either. And according to Dan Rafael, a good amount of them were rooting for Timmy.

Also Dan Rafael, and a bunch of analyst off ESPN and Ring Magazine re-watched the fight and all it did was reinforce what they originally thought, a decisive victory for Manny.

I myself rewatched the fight with no sound. I had it 117-111. If I'm being extremely generous, 116-112 Pacquiao.

[cowboyronnie]

I didn't say they messed up the score or that they would have influenced our scoring at home, just that they spent the second half of the fight gilding Pacquiao rather than specifically describing the fight. They clearly got carried away.

Again, nothing happened in the 11th other than some good angling and footwork, yet Lampley concludes it by claiming Pac landed power shots. He just didn't. And the HBO team had spent that round off on a tangent about Pacquiao rather than paying attention to what was happening in the ring.

[Butch718]

Oh definitely. I think they got carried away because Pacquiao had controlled the majority of the fight. So they just went with the narrative.

[JohnnyG]

Rafe Bartholomew from Grantland summed it up pretty good: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8036150/a-ringside-account-controversial-fight-manny-pacquiao-timothy-bradley-jr