MSU Red Cedar Message Board

Manny had plenty of chances to knock Bradley out and should have done it. Overall, as I watched the fight I saw Bradley getting his a** kicked. Yes he got in some exchanges with Manny as far as punches go. When a fighter out punches you 253-159 and wins, I question what the judges were watching.

I quit watching boxing after Hearns- Leonard II

Top Rank's Bob Arum, who promotes Pacquiao and Bradley, was stunned. He said he had it 118-110 for Pacquiao.

"When I came into the ring [after the fight], I said to Tim, 'You did very well,' and he said 'I tried hard and I couldn't beat the guy. You talk about killing boxing. Even [Bradley's manager, Cameron Dunkin] had it 8-4 for Pacquiao.

"Something like this is so outlandish, it's a death knell for the sport. This is f------ nuts. I have both guys, and I'll make a lot of money in the rematch, but it's ridiculous. You have these old f---- who don't know what the hell they're looking at. It's incompetence. Nobody who knows anything about boxing could have Bradley ahead in the fight."

From the link:

"Bob Arum is the most powerful man in boxing! As the man behind the Top Rank promotional firm, Arum, a Harvard graduate in the late 1950s, became a United States Attorney under then Attorney General Robert Kennedy. While collecting tax money from a Sonny Liston heavyweight title defense circa 1962, Arum was bitten by the boxing bug. After the assassination of President John Kennedy, Arum felt the need to resign his position with the “G” and became a boxing promoter.

PUT THIS “QUOTE” ON ARUM’S TOMBSTONE!
With Muhammad Ali his first client, Arum has been involved in big fights since the mid 1960s. His most famous quote is, “Yesterday I was lying, but today I’m telling the truth.”

MET WITH & THEN SENT BRIBE MONEY TO LEE
In the mid 1990s, Arum committed a host of Felonies when he admittedly gave then IBF President Bob Lee over $100,000 as a “bribe” to allow George Foreman, then heavyweight champ, to fight Axel Schultz instead of a top contender. He accomplished this by laundering the money through Europe with then booking agent Stan Hoffman. Shortly thereafter, Arum admitted such in a US Dept. of Justice affidavit that was published here at RingTalk.com. The fallout saw Arum fined in a number of states, while unable to promote in Arizona.

Look at Manny. Hardly huge at all, especially compared to Bradley. Mayweather is a pussy. Pacquiao's power comes from his legs, which are huge and it doesn't take roids to build big calves.

Wife is still pissed but wore her Pacquiao shirt out to the gym in support of her countryman who got totally hosed last night.

Mayweather is not who Pacquaio wanted to fight after Marquez exposed poor defense against an accomplished counter puncher. Pacquiao looked awful against Marquez

I know you really dislike Mayweather but "pussy"? Really?

5-5-07 Mayweather beats DeLaHoya in a split decision
12-6-08 Pacquaio beats DeLaHoya when Oscar doesn't come out for the 9th round

12-8-07 Mayweather stops Hatten in the 10th rd TKO
5-2-09 Pacquaio stops hatten in 2 KO

9-19-09 Mayweather beats Marquez UD
11-12-11 Pacquaio Beats Marquez in MD

5-1-10 Mayweather beats Mosely
5-7-11 Pacquiao beats Mosely

Arum has this habit of scheduling fighters for Pacquiao AFTER they fight Mayweather.

I agree- the overall telecast contributed to the feeling Pac just ran over Bradley. After thinking about it for a day I'm not nearly as outraged as before. Bradley did hang in there. He rallied in the late rounds. Manny took a ton of time off during the rounds.

This wasn't like the 2nd Pacquiao/Marquez bout or Mayweather/DeLaHoya decision where one could make an argument on how close the fight may have been.

By almost every measure used to judge boxing matches Pacquaio won. More punch landed, more effective punches.

The only "idiots" here will be those believing Arum's post fight comments regarding the judging were genuine. Arum has both fighters under contract. If Arum loses anything its reduced PPV dollars for the rematch. Arum has become a very wealth man by paying fighters less through the intricacies of he management fee contracts. What this fight may do is reduce US interest in the rematch but Arum will still make millions if he can make his PPV deal with ABS-CBN Corp that controls the 6 largest cable providers in the Phillipines along with the 4 or 5 satellite providers in the Phillippines.

Unless Bradley would defeat Pacquiao by KO or TKO a rematch, a Mayweather / Pacquaio fight would still set records.

You come off brilliant in this post. Let me tell you that first...

The wives always look rattled.

I'll start off by saying Manny won the fight in my eyes. 116-112 or 117-111.

To his fault though he looked bad/lazy at times because he also coasted for huge parts of rounds, and was missing wildly a lot when he did miss.

I can legitimately see Bradley winning 1,2,10,11,12. You only need 3 other rounds out of 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 to win 115-113.

I don't think it's right, and I don't agree with it, but I think I see how it's possible, and possibly even legitimate.

Bradley did tend to move forward more, DID throw more punches and more jabs which will often be rewarded by bad/lazy judging.

I was at the fight, and therefore not swayed by announcers (although I suppose you could argue I was swayed by 10,000 loud Filipinos, even though the folks near me were mostly cheering for Bradley).
I do respect that Bradley kept coming into the late rounds, and I was disappointed that Manny was unable to take him out when I thought he should have. That being said, I thought Manny won the fight going away.
I guess you could say that there were that many close rounds, but only if you're rewarding less effective work. With loose criteria for what makes a "close round", you could argue that there were that many close rounds in the Mayweather-Cotto fight, too, but I think the judges were right on with that one and the scorecards accurately reflected Floyd's advantage. I'd say this fight was similar...Bradley kept coming, much like Cotto, and Pacquiao came away with the better of the exchanges on most occasions, even in the later rounds.
Here's where I'm at with the bigger picture:
Although I'm a Manny fan, I've come around to the line of thinking that Arum is at fault for the fact that the 2 best fighters in a generation, who fight at the same weight, appear that they will never meet (and if they do, it will be way past the point at which it would have been most competitive). At this point, I don't think Manny beats Floyd anyhow. Given Manny's last 3 fights: not being able to take out Shane despite dominating him, probably losing the JMM fight and looking average in doing so, and again failing to take out a less talented (albeit great-chinned) Bradley when he had him reeling multiple times probably adds up to Manny not being at a level he would need to be to beat Floyd. Floyd looked fantastic against Cotto, and doesn't appear to have any signs of diminishing skills. I always figured Manny would have a chance just by getting Floyd into exchanges and potentially catching him clean, and then we'd find out what Floyd has when and if he had to get into survival mode. After the Cotto fight, I think Floyd has shown he can handle himself just fine in those circumstances. Whether he'd put himself in that position against a fighter with better power than Cotto (I don't think Floyd truly thought Cotto could hurt him) is an open question, but I think he'd handle Manny. I wish we could have seen it 2-3 years ago. Honestly, even thought I'm not a fan of the public persona of Floyd, I think Manny probably would have brought out the best in him at that point and we would have gotten a fight for the ages, and probably one where everyone left respecting Floyd more than they ever will without that fight as part of his record.

The decision on Saturday didn't take much away from the fight for me, it was my first time in the arena for a big-time fight like that and I soaked in every second of it. However, the decision did show me that Arum is still Arum and it's unfortunate the influence he still has in the sport. There's little question in my mind that he engineered this, and his indignant act afterwards was a joke. He really has done a disservice to the sport by not putting these two guys together. It could have been a new generation's Leonard-Hearns-Hagler-Duran, the type of series of fights that creates lifetime fans.

I'm a big fan of Floyd (and Manny, though that's apparently not allowed) and I thought he looked really diminished offensively vs Cotto. He missed A LOT more than he usually does, didn't pull the trigger at times he always would in the past and actually seemed to not notice the couple of times in the earlier rounds where he buckled Cotto.

Sounds like Floyd's R hand was pretty screwed up going into the Cotto fight and I guess that should be noted.

That being said, I think Floyd's ability to adjust, length, and handspeed would carry the day against Manny.

Both guys really appear to be in OBVIOUS decline over their last two fights to me.

By the way, can someone explain the prevailing theory as to why Arum doesn't want the fight to happen and why he would fix a loss on Saturday? Obviously if Manny loses to Floyd he would still rake a huge payday and at least one more with a rematch. Does he just think he can make more matching up Manny with his own fighters?

Talk was that Manny was going to leave Top Rank (Bob Arum), and now because of the rematch clause he essentially has to stay.