BOXING: Manny Pacquiao loses title as Bradley Wins with split decision

LAS VEGAS—Timothy Bradley (29-0, 12 knockouts) jolted the boxing world on Saturday night with a controversial majority decision over pound-for-pound king, Manny Pacquiao (54-4-2, 38 knockouts). Judge C.J Ross and Duane Ford had Bradley 115-113, while Jerry Ross's tally was 115-113 for Pacquiao.

Howls erupted in the arena as the verdict was announced. Many commentators found the decision egregious. Some had Pacquiao winning all but one round and hardly a boxing scribe could be found who had Bradley on top. Pacquiao connected with 253 punches to the winner's 159, and he brought home 82 more power shots than Bradley. Final punch stats don't always tell the story of a fight; however, according to punch-count system Compubox, Pacquiao outlanded Bradley in all but two frames of the contest.

The first seven stanzas were fought at a ferocious pace. Pacquiao often jabbed to the body and then cracked Bradley to the head with his famous straight left. Bradley flurried but Pacquiao caught most of his blows. Both fighters winged wild shots, and were often thrown off balance and tangled up with one another. Bradley, who came to the news conference in a wheelchair, twisted his left ankle badly in the second round. His trainer, Joel Diaz revealed, "I gave him two options, to stop the fight or continue. He chose to continue."

Going into the middle rounds, Pacquiao was repeatedly landing his very potent straight left, and there was a growing conviction at ringside that the Pacman was going to notch his first knockout in his last four fights.

Still, one of Bradley's most well-known assets is his ability to make adjustments in the fray. In the sixth round, Bradley started to get his second wind but more importantly, as Bradley put it, "I started working with angles, sticking and moving."
And yet, even as the man known as "Desert Storm" began to tweak his strategy, he didn't exactly overwhelm his rival offensively. Bradley scored with jabs down the middle and with hooks to the body, but not with dramatic effect. Pacquiao summed it up, "Tonight he never hurt me. Most of his punches hit my arms."

Immediately after the decision was announced, the ever-gracious Pacquiao said, "I did my best but I guess my best wasn't good enough." He added, "Regarding the scoring, I don't know what happened. No problem. I will be ready for the rematch." When pressed as to whether he won the fight, Pacquiao said, "No doubt."

Bradley, who was very confident going into the matchup, promised, "I got to give him a chance to win his title back."

At the end of the night, the potential megabout between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao might have gone down for the count. But then again, one never knows the twists and turns that boxing can take.

Nevertheless, even to those who saw Pacquiao as the clear victor, one point was evident. When Bradley began to box, Pacquiao began to have serious problems. And in terms of pure boxing acumen, Mayweather is Bradley's superior. Pacquiao's timing was off and his legs, which many insist are the first to go as a fighter ages, weren't there in the later rounds. Even worse than the legs, Pacquiao doesn't seem to be boxing with the same glee and drive that the world glimpsed when he trounced Oscar De La Hoya in 2008. The loss tonight will either rekindle Pacquiao's spirit for the sport that has taken him so far, or it will mark the beginning of the end of his storied career.

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