In case you haven’t heard by now, undefeated boxer Timothy Bradley (29-0-0 12 KOs) scored a controversial split decision over heavily favored Manny Pacquiao (54-4-2 38 KOs) to win the WBO welterweight championship, a fight that many (if not all) fans believe Pacquiao dominated. The fight was scored 115-113 for Pacquiao on one card and 115-113 for Bradley on the other two judges cards.
To add fuel to the boxing controversy fire, apparently back on May 29th Tim Bradley tweeted a flyer for a November 10th rematch with Pacquiao, with tickets stated to go on sale June 10th. Here’s the flyer:
To Bradley’s credit, there was a rematch clause already built in to the fight contract and him tweeting a picture for a rematch can be attributed to his camp’s confidence that Bradley would win.
But from all outside accounts, Bradley didn’t win the Pacquiao fight without some help from the judges. HBO’s Harold Lederman even unofficially scored the fight 11 rounds to 1 in favor of Pacquiao, making it understandable how fans can feel as if the fight was fixed. Top Rank head promoter Bob Arum has also been protesting the result of the fight and says he plans to appeal, but it may be too late to salvage boxing’s (and Top Rank’s) shaky reputations.
Look at it this way; if Pacquiao defeats Bradley convincingly, there most likely isn’t a rematch because most fans will be screaming for a matchup with Floyd Mayweather. Bradley scoring a victory gives Top Rank a selling point to fans, some box office appeal and for you hard core conspiracy theorists out there, another excuse for Top Rank to avoid making a fight with Mayweather. Any way you look at it, something sounds fishy.
Whether the fight was fixed or not, the results leave another black eye on the current state of the boxing game. The only real losers here are the fans who shell out large sums of money hoping to see a fair fight.
-ALR
