By Rob Smith: Alex Ariza, the strength and conditioning trainer for WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao, expects his opponent Timothy Bradley to be coming right at him on June 9th looking to slug it out with him instead of boxing. Ariza doesn’t see Bradley as a technical fighter and thinks he’ll just come looking to trade in this fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ariza told Philstar.com “He’s a high volume puncher who’ll come forward. Bradley’s not a technical guy like [Juan Manuel] Marquez. He fights somewhat like Manny. That’s why I think it’ll be explosive fight.”
It’s hard to take anything that Ariza says as gospel given his knockout prediction for Pacquiao against Marquez in his last fight. Ariza made it seem like Pacquiao beating Marquez would be a piece of cake. What we saw instead was Pacquiao win a controversial 12 round decision that didn’t sit right with a lot of boxing fans, but did agree with Pacquiao’s loyal following. Bradley isn’t anything like Pacquiao at all. I’m not sure what Bradley Ariza has been watching but he’s not like Pacquiao. Bradley tends to lower his head and fight on the inside.
In contrast, Pacquiao is a poor inside fighter and he doesn’t lower his head when he’s coming in. Bradley likes to clinch at times to smother his opponents’ offense. Pacquiao very rarely clinches at all. Bradley likes to punch to the body, whereas Pacquiao is strictly a head hunter from the word go.
I think Ariza is an okay conditioning trainer, but I don’t buy anything what he says about his predictions about fights or evaluations of fighters. He’s so far off in his evaluation of Bradley that it’s not even funny. I’m just waiting for Ariza to come on with the early round KO prediction for Pacquiao over Bradley. That’ll be interesting to hear and then see Pacquiao once again fail to get a knockout. His last knockout came in 2009.