If Manny Pacquiao chooses not to fight WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley in a rematch on April 12th, and instead face his former sparring partner Ruslan Provodnikov, then Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum is interested in putting together a rematch between Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez. Presumably the Bradley-Marquez fight would then be the co-feature for Pacquiao’s bout against Provodnikov in April.
It makes a lot of sense to have Marquez on the card, because without Marquez, who Arum wanted to face Pacquiao in a 5th fight, Pacquiao’s next fight might not bring in the huge pay-per-view numbers that he’s been accustomed to getting in the past when matched against Marquez and Miguel Cotto. Arum has struck out when matching Pacquiao against Bradley, Joshua Clottey and Brandon Rios in getting big PPV numbers.
Mario H. (Tampa, FL): There was a lot of discussion in the aftermath of Bradley/Marquez about Marquez being “robbed again”. How did you score the fight? And how did you rate the performance of both men?
The narrative for Timothy Bradley’s career before last night was that of negativity and spoiled success. Bradley has been a fighter more criticized than praised on his rise to prominence and his time in the limelight has been one of turmoil. Boxing fans and pundits alike have had a slow transition to giving credit to Bradley after his ugly technical decision win over Devon Alexander in 2011 and his controversial decision over pound for pound boxing icon Manny Pacquiao.
HBO PPV viewers and the live crowd at the MGM Grand saw Timothy “Desert Storm” Bradley out-box and out-fox Juan Manuel “Diaminta” Marquez twelve championship rounds for the welterweight championship. Marquez was forced into a fight where he needed to be the aggressor. As most fans know, Marquez’ strong suit is counter punching. He is at his best when he can draw his opponents into traps. He welcomes their aggression, and generally makes them pay for mistakenly thinking they made a good move.
WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (31-0, 12 KO’s) won an incredibly dull 12 round split decision on Saturday night over 40-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez (55-7-1, 40 KO’s) by the scores of 115-113 Marquez, 116-112, 115-113 Bradley at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
World class skill, heart, and grit will be on full display this Saturday night from the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada on HBO PPV. Many questions and queries from the boxing public will be answered when these pound for pound level fighters square off. Before we attempt to answer the final question of who will win enough battles to ultimately win the war, let’s take a look at what’s at stake and the doubts causing mass speculation leading into this matchup.
The Final press conference for the undercard fights on the Marquez-Bradley welterweight showdown took place on Thursday in Las Vegas.
Rarely do fight fans get a fight that we, the public want to see. Usually the promoters in their best interest and their fight stable, create fight cards and then OCNVINCE us it’s what we want to see. They hype enough and we buy into, because we are fight fans. Come Saturday though, I as a fight fan will be watching with intrigue the fight between Bradley and Marquez. Both of these fighters are true warriors and will fight to the finish. We have Bradley a come forward fighter, who though claims he will not be reckless as his previous fight, has something to prove to the world. That in his heart he did beat Pacquiao. Then you have Marquez a slick counter punching assassin, with a vicious body attack and precision that would make many surgeons jealous.
After the final press conference concluded, both Marquez and Bradley took the time to answer questions from the media and press. Fighters spoke about their mindsets going into this fight, explained what their goals are for winning and things to expect come Saturday night. Here are a few of many questions that were answered.