Timothy Bradley has emerged as a possible opponent for Manny Pacquiao following his less than convincing majority decision win over Juan Manuel Marquez in a WBO welterweight title defence last weekend.
Speculation has been rife as to who Pacquiao will choose to take on next. Many fight fans would like to see the Filipino try to rid himself of the Marquez monkey once and for all, and believe the only way he can hope to achieve that is to beat the Mexican convincingly in the ring.
Other fans would prefer to see Pacquiao take on WBC welterweight champ Floyd Mayweather Jr before what they perceive as a decline in the Filipino’s skills becomes so dramatic as to render such a confrontation a mismatch.
Emerging from the fallout of Pacquiao Marquez III is WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley, newly signed to Top Rank, the promotional company run by Bob Arum, whose roster of clients includes the likes of Antonio Margarito, Miguel Cotto and Pacquiao himself. Bradley put himself in line for a matchup with Pacquiao by stopping Joel Casamayor in eight rounds in the chief supporting bout on the Pacquiao Marquez undercard.
While everyone from Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach, Bob Arum and Pacquiao himself has subsequently admitted that the bout with Marquez was desperately close (while falling somewhat short of admitting that the Mexican might just have won) and have suggested that he deserves a fourth fight, the feeling within camp Pacquiao is that they have nothing whatsoever to gain from another war against their nemesis ? and everything to lose.
Just like Ken Norton was the thorn in Muhammad Ali’s side and arguably won all three of their fights between 1973 and 1976 (in reality he won the first but lost the next two), so Marquez has the ability to drive Pacquiao nuts inside the ring. If they fought each other another 10 times, each bout would be a virtual clone of the other, with Pacquiao the aggressor, and Marquez the counterpuncher.
