Pacquiao vs. Bradley: The Biggest Victim Is the Sport of Boxing

In the aftermath of last Saturday night, the word victim was thrown around a lot by people in the sports media and on television. 

Manny Pacquiao was called a victim for ending up with the short end of the stick as a result of horrible judging by three of Nevada's supposed best.

Tim Bradley was called a victim for having his chance to celebrate a career-defining win torpedoed by the controversy that surrounded it.

Some even made the case that judges Duane Ford, CJ Ross and Jerry Roth were victims.

After all judges are only human too, and are as fallible as the rest of us. They too can have bad nights and make mistakes. Judging a high-speed, world-class prize fight is difficult in real-time, especially without the benefit of replay.

In the last few days most, if not all, the vitriol from the public has been directed at the judges, but also a fair amount has been thrown at Timothy Bradley.

Bradley, despite what you feel about the decision, whose only crime was showing up to fight and doing a pretty good job of it.

None of the criticism directed towards Timothy Bradley is warranted. This kid worked his tail off, and showed himself to be a pretty good fighter and a heck of a warrior for standing in there with Manny Pacquiao on two bad legs. He deserves a lot of credit. 

Timothy Bradley put in a good performance, not nearly enough to win the fight, but enough to win some fans and respect.

Many boxing observers, myself included, came away from the fight with more respect for Bradley's skill than they had going into the fight. 

That said, Tim Bradley is not a victim. Right, wrong or indifferent, he gets to walk the earth holding a victory over Manny Pacquiao.

He also gets to walk around with the WBO Welterweight Championship.

Whether its a rematch with Pacquiao or a different fight altogether, he will be just fine.

Manny Pacquiao is also not a victim. And if he is, then he's not the biggest one. Pacquiao made a ton of money from this fight, at least $26 million, and will make a similar  amount regardless of who he faces next.

The overwhelming majority of people won't consider this a loss for Pacquiao, despite what the official record states.  

Bob Arum is Bob Arum. He has both guys and made his money too. Despite his dog and pony show protestations, he could care less about cleaning up the sport.

The real victim was the sport.

Now, guys like me and many others are used to the bad relationship that is being a boxing fan. We shell out time and money and, more times than should happen, get an inferior product for our devotion.

Now I'm not and likely never will be one of those guys who says, "I'm never watching boxing again," after a controversial or, in this case, outrageous decision.

Guys like me are a dying breed. There ain't too many of us around anymore.

Whenever there's a big PPV event I rarely shell out the $60-65 bucks it costs for HD on my own. I'll either have people over to my place or go to someone else's house to split up the cost.

A lot of the guys I watch fights with aren't really boxing fans. Some are casual, but they're more general sports fans. And a Manny Pacquiao fight or a Floyd Mayweather fight is now a sports event.

In the case of these two, at least it transcends boxing and becomes a mainstream sporting event.

When you have results like what happened this Saturday, you turn people off. I, like everyone else, is outraged, angry, disappointed and sad for the sport.

But I'll come back.

The problems are the casual fans who don't have the same time or emotion invested who see what happened Saturday night, then walk away with a bad taste in their mouths.

Many of them won't be back. And that's what is killing the sport.