While Dionisia Pacquiao had often asked her son to leave boxing, she says for once she can’t wait to see him get back in the ring.
“I want all of Manny’s fans to know there will be a revenge and that he will recover the belt [of the WBO welterweight,]” said the mother of the Filipino boxer.
When Bradley defeated Pacquiao in one of the most controversial decisions in boxing history, it was clear to see the reverberations of the fight would be much more lasting than the fight itself.
The day after the fight, Top Rank CEO Bob Arum (who represents both fighters) announced there will not be a rematch, which is scheduled for November, until the Nevada Boxing Commission is summarily investigated.
Timothy Bradley had already been pushing the rematch days before the fight, something that has irked boxing fans and spurred conspiracy theories (though at the time it only seemed the ramblings of an extremely confident fighter).
Ultimately, boxing’s image (already in pieces) continued to be damaged by a decision, a chaotic one that seemed to bring down its biggest champion. Perhaps Top Rank figured bible-thumping Pacquiao was not as great an asset, or perhaps the spots from where the judges were watching really did provide a different picture.
Judge Duane Ford already defended his decision, saying Bradley had outboxed Pacquiao and made him miss throughout the fight (despite that Pacquiao landed a higher percentage of his punches).
“I’m looking for effective aggressiveness. I thought Pacquiao won a lot of the early rounds, and I thought Bradley came on in the end. That’s why I gave Bradley the last three rounds,” Roth told the Las Vegas Review.
Timothy Bradley, who has unfairly been painted as a villain, had put in a heroic performance, regardless of the decision, even boxing most of the fight with a severely strained ankle and broken foot.
“What do you want me to do? There were three judges and they saw it the way they saw it. We definitely need to do this again in November and make it more decisive for everyone,” he said from a wheelchair in the post-match press conference.
