The Best PPV Card of the Year

This Saturday, boxing’s only 8 weight world champion, Manny Pacquiao, will take on Timothy Bradley in what seems to be his final fight in a glittering 21 year career. However, although the fight is between two top 10 Pound For Pound fighters and two future Hall of Famers, the boxing world has seemingly turned its back on what is arguably the best PPV card of 2016. There are a number of reasons why. 

This is the 3^rd fight of the most one-sided trilogy in living memory. When the two fighters first met back in 2012, Timothy Bradley somehow managed to win a split decision in the score-cards when many people had scored the fight 8-4 or 9-3 to Pacquiao. It was one of the most disgraceful decisions in a fight where Bradley had no answers to the faster Pacquiao who was able to jump in and out of range at will catching Bradley with shot after shot.

In the second fight back in 2014, Pacquiao inflicted Bradley’s first loss of his career, winning in a unanimous decision and dominating the fight throughout. Turning to the 3^rd fight, it is arguable that Bradley has only won six or seven rounds in the previous two match-ups. However there are still many questions that need answering. There is no doubt that Pacquiao had lost some of his explosiveness against Mayweather and whether he can get back to his devastating best is certainly questionable.

Bradley is now with a new trainer in Teddy Atlas who received much credit after Bradley stopped Brandon Rios in his last fight. However Rios looked overweight and slow so to give one of the most overrated trainers in boxing credit would be an error in judgement. Having said that, Bradley could well take advantage of the ageing Filipino who tuned 37 back in December.

Bob Arum has delivered a stacked under-card featuring Arthur Abraham, defending his WBO title against undefeated contender Gilberto Ramirez, exciting prospect, Oscar Valdez fighting Evgeny Gradovich and prospects Egidijus Kavaliauskas (11-0) and Oleksandr Gvozdyk (8-0).

Abraham, who has not fought outside Germany since he was beaten by Andre Ward, and he is up against the much bigger and stronger opponent in Ramirez. This clash of styles sets up a fascinating clash, Arum has paid a lot of money to get Abraham over to the US so he will be praying that Ramirez can do the business.

Oscar Valdez is one of the most exciting prospects in the stacked featherweight division. He is up against Russian, Evgeny Gradovich whose only defeat came against Lee Selby. This is a great step up in class for Valdez whose has certainly passed the eye test so far in his 18 fight career showing both great boxing ability and devastating punch power.

This is by far the best card of 2016 and although there has been little to no hype about the main event the two card preceding it are absolutely fascinating, especially the Abraham-Ramirez fight which is a genuine 50/50. To pick a winner in the main event is a lot harder than many will think. Bradley could take advantage of Pacquiao’s evident deterioration in the Mayweather fight and he should do enough to win the fight on points.

Prediction:

Bradley on points

Ramirez on points

Valdez KO

Tom Eckett

@boxingguru44

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