DISCLOSURE – For years during his lucrative professional career, retired former IBO champion Paulie Ayala of Fort Worth was under the direction of boxing promoter Bob Arum’s leadership. Arum has both Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley in his camp.
It’s been almost two days since boxing assumed we are all collectively stupid to give us the Timothy Bradley “decision” over Manny Pacquiao.
In an effort to determine if anyone on this planet actually thought Bradley won this fight, I called Paulie Ayala today to see what he thought. He is a boxer, and knows the fight game as well as anyone in Fort Worth.
His reaction was that there was no way he could see how Bradley won that fight.
“I couldn’t, no,” he said. “I would give him the last couple of rounds, give or take. Maybe. If anything, I didn’t really see him winning any rounds. He wasn’t fighting to win he was fighting not to lose. Look at his other fights and he’s always moving forwards. He wasn’t doing that against Manny. He had hurt his foot or his ankle in the second round and when you get like that, my thought is, why not try to win? B
“But I think Manny’s power just neutralizes everything. (Bradley) was fighthing conservative. He was fighting not to lose.”
Ayala said he didn’t believe this was a fix, but the result of incompetent judges.
He also said we’re more apt to see a Pacquiao/Bradley re-match before Floyd Mayweather potentially fights either of these two guys.
Either way, “This is bad for boxing,” Paulie said. “I mean, I even feel the repercussions of it. When people see decisions like that, they don’t want to attend my club fights. It hurts in the media’s eyes. It’s just bad.”
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