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

https://twitter.com/boxingguru44

Manny Pacquiao: A career shadowed by PED abuse

This article is written from the perspective of what I have seen as a boxing fan. It is my belief, and the belief of many others, that Manny Pacquiao’s extraordinary career is owed to the fact that he took Performance Enhancing Drugs in order to help himself move up and down in weight and become the first eight division world champion and the first four weight lineal champion. Here are the reasons for this assumption:

The first and probably the most convincing piece of evidence is not actually Pacquiao’s maintenance of his speed and power as he moved up in weight but the fact that he developed a strong chin which had not been there in the early part of his career. In 2000, against Nedal Hussein he was dropped by a jab in round 4 and he was dropped again in 2003 by Serikzhan Yeshmagambetov.

However in the latter part of his career he was walking through the punches of Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley and Oscar de la Hoya to name a few. It does certainly beg the question of where this chin suddenly appeared from. People who argue that Pacquiao was KO’d by Marquez which highlights Pacquiao’s bad chin should remember that it is very likely that Marquez was on some form of PED for that as well.

Now turning to Pacquiao’s skills as an offensive fighter. What is so impressive about Pacquiao’s ability is the fact that he can throw 5/6 punch combinations in rapid fashion, take a step back, and fire again seconds later. The volume of punches he was throwing in the late 2000s in his fight was simply ridiculous. Fast forward to 2015, when he fought Mayweather, and both fighters had had random drug testing, Pacquiao was physically unable to throw the combinations he had been throwing in previous fights.

Furthermore, Pacquiao’s style and frame is not suited for someone who should be moving up and down in weight all the time. The reason Mayweather was able to move up in weight was because of his defensive style. Mayweather sacrificed his punching power in order to move up to welterweight and light-middleweight. Pacquiao has not sacrificed anything, be it hand-speed, punching power or ability to take a punch and in some departments he has even improved as he has gone up in weight which is simply not natural.

In his fight with David Diaz, (the first time Pacquiao fought at 135lb), the HBO commentators were shocked about Pacquiao’s physique going into the ring:

‘To me I am just amazed that he is fighting at his 4^th weight division and look at his body. I mean usually when a smaller guy moves up in weight you see a lot of fat or something like Duran but he looks perfect.’

‘By our lights it appears you were faster than ever and stronger than ever.’

It is the unwritten rule amongst sports pundits: innocent until proven guilty. This is certainly the case in boxing. The sports’ top pundits are not allowed to express their own, sometimes controversial opinion, in fear of being reprimanded. This is not just the case with PED abuse but in all areas of the sport; the political and shady aspects of boxing are ignored by top pundits because it brings their career into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

There are just too many examples which highlight the fact that Pacquiao was probably on some form of Performance Enhancing Drug at some point in his illustrious career. If he was not then he should take it as a compliment that so many people are convinced he was on PEDs.

Finally, if Pacquiao did use PEDs then, like many other boxers, he has exploited the sport we love by cheating and, more importantly, he has put the lives of the people he has fought in great danger. We will never know whether Pacquiao did use PEDs and it will remain one of the great boxing mysteries of our era.

Tom Eckett

@boxingguru44

https://twitter.com/boxingguru44