Pacquiao vs. Bradley: Desert Storm Foolish to Promote Rematch

WBO junior welterweight champion Timothy "Desert Storm" Bradley is confident enough in his chances of dethroning WBO welterweight champion Manny "PacMan" Pacquiao in their June 9th fight that his camp is already hyping a rematch between the two fighters.

However, all Bradley may have accomplished is handing the eight-time champ some bulletin board material that will only help to get Bradley punched in the face a few hundred times.

According to a report in The Las Vegas Review-Journal, attendees at Bradley's media day Tuesday were given faux "press credentials" that read "Bradley-Pacquiao 2 - Nov. 10, 2012; Tickets on sale June 10." The 28-year-old Bradley (28-0, 12 KOs, one no contest) has a rematch clause in his contract if he upsets the 33-year-old Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 knockouts).

Bradley will all but certainly need to fight the bout of his career in order to defeat Pacquiao, and for his part Bradley told the The Review-Journal that's he ready and then some for this fight after some of the most grueling training of his career.

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I have to bring the pain in this fight, I'm prepared to do that. By the time we're done with training camp this week, I'll have sparred 160 rounds. That's a lot of rounds.

But to beat someone like Pacquiao, you have to be prepared to outwork him and match his volume of punches. I have to do double or triple whatever he's doing. If he throws 10 punches, then I have to throw 20.

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That may well be true, but Bradley would be best served to save his energy for the ring. Even then it may not be enough to stave off the hard-charging Pacquiao, who has built a reputation as a relentless opponent by forcing the action against a veritable who's who of boxing, from Oscar De La Hoya to Miguel Cotto and Juan Manuel Marquez.

The last thing Bradley needed to do was stoke the Filipino's competitive fires even more, and while the "rematch" stunt is just the sort of showmanship that is part and parcel of professional boxing, it's likely that Bradley's people did just that with their "prediction" of a Bradley victory.

For what it's worth Pacquiao doesn't appear to be taking the bait, at least publicly, as PacMan recently spoke very highly of Bradley in an "In Their Own Words" piece for ESPN.

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Bradley seems to be improving with every fight. His victories over Lamont Peterson and Devon Alexander, who were undefeated when he fought them, were very impressive. He knows how to impose his will on his opponents. He turns fights into wars.

I do have concerns about Bradley's fighting style. Anytime a southpaw fights an orthodox-style boxer head-butts are bound to happen, but with Bradley it's more of a concern because he tends to lead with his head. Hopefully we will have a good referee who will not let him do that. Regardless, it's my job to be prepared for anything he may bring.

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Pacquiao-Bradley may not be the fight involving PacMan that everyone wants to see, but it still has the makings of a very entertaining contest between one of boxing's pound-for-pound greats and an up-and coming challenger searching for a career-defining upset.

However, climbing into the ring with Manny Pacquiao is a bit like entering a cage with a tiger and, with that said, I don't know how advisable it was for the challenger to poke that tiger with a stick before opening the cage door.

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