LAS VEGAS – There’s a big difference between getting knocked out with one punch and taking a beating all night long.
Manny Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach, Justine Fortune, would take the former.
Fortune made the comparison as he looked back at Pacquiao’s stunning knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez in December of 2012.
Then he reminded scribes of Tim Bradley’s fight against Russian beast Ruslan Provodnikov in February last year.
Bradley won the fight on points but in the end he looked like the loser. He took a terrible beating against Provodnikov and was lucky to stay in his toes.
Bradley went down twice although the first was ruled as a slip. In the 12th and final round, he went down again, and some people felt he lost it right there.
“Manny’s never been punished in the ring,†said Fortune.
Pacquiao has five defeats under his name, three of them by knockout. But those knockouts didn’t come because he took a lot of punches.
Of the two other defeats, the only one where he took some pretty good shots was the one against Erik Morales in 2005. Against Bradley in 2012, he lost a decision he should have won.
“Except for some cuts and head-butts he’s never been punished,†said Fortune.
And it’s not the case with Bradley, who went through hell against Provodnikov.
“Bradley got punished by Ruslan and that does more damage than a one-punch knockout. He doesn’t even remember the second round to the 12th. He doesn’t remember the fight,†said the ex-boxer from Australia.
“That’s a problem so you know he took a beating,†he added.
Fortune doesn’t see Bradley standing on his feet when the fight ends on Saturday at the MGM Grand.
Any predictions?
“I’d say under nine,†said Fortune.