Manny Pacquiao: Pac-Man Has Plenty to Prove vs. Timothy Bradley

So Manny Pacquiao will not be fighting Floyd Mayweather, Jr. in 2012. The two danced around the possibility for a couple weeks, but bridging their differences proved to be as impossible as ever.

It's a true shame that Pac-Man and Money won't be fighting one another. Pac-Man poses the most serious threat to Money's undefeated record, and Money poses the most serious threat to Pac-Man's status as the best pound-for-pound boxer on earth. The two of them are destined to fight, but not until one of them flinches and agrees to compromise.

Oh well.

In lieu of fighting Mayweather, Pac-Man will fight Timothy Bradley, Jr., who has an undefeated record of his own (with one no contest). The agreement was revealed by ESPN.com on Monday.

Though Bradley is no slouch, this bout looks like a mismatch on paper. Bradley hasn't fought anyone nearly as good as Pacquiao, and this match will be fought at welterweight. Bradley is not totally inexperienced at welterweight, but he's not as experienced as Pac-Man is in the division. 

When this fight comes around, Pacquiao will be the overwhelming favorite, and it will be a huge upset if Bradley wins.

Be that as it may, there are more than a few question marks hanging over Pac-Man's head as he speeds towards the June 9th fight date. He's still widely recognized as the baddest fighter on the planet, but his dominance has come into question in the last couple of years.

You have to focus on Pac-Man's last three fights against Antonio Margarito, Shane Mosley and Juan Manuel Marquez. The first two were total duds in which Pac-Man was not challenged, and the third was a battle from start to finish that some think Pac-Man should have lost.

Starting with the Margarito fight, you're not going to find anybody who will argue that Magarito ever stood a chance. Pac-Man hit Margarito hard and hit him often, and by the end of the fight Margarito was barely recognizable. He wasn't able to fight again for over a year because of what Pac-Man did to his face.

Mosley didn't fare any better. He was old and over-the-hill heading into the bout, and he proceeded to look old and over-the-hill. He embarrassed himself, and Pac-Man impressed nobody by beating him to smithereens.

We all thought Marquez was old and over-the-hill too, but man were we wrong. Marquez gave Pac-Man hell just like he did in their first two fights. The majority decision for Pac-Man was the right call, but he was humbled in a big way.

You can chalk that up primarily to the fact that Marquez's style has always been tough for Pac-Man to overcome, but I'll wager that rust, or maybe an underlying sense of contentment contributed to Pac-Man getting challenged the way he did. His fight against Marquez was a wake-up call.

Against Bradley, Pac-Man essentially has to prove that the Marquez fight did indeed wake him up. This is a fight that he should dominate, and it's a fight he'll have to dominate in order to prove that he isn't losing his edge. It was easy to give Pac-Man the benefit of the doubt for a while there, but he needs to prove he still deserves it.

If Pac-Man wins, the Mayweather watch will be on again. If Pacquiao doesn't have the benefit of the doubt, things are going to be awfully interesting.