By Rob Smith: One way of looking at Manny Pacquiao’s fight against Timothy Bradley is to see it the way Pacquiao’s close adviser Michael Koncz sees it. He thinks Bradley can become a superstar merely by being competitive with Pacquiao while still losing the fight. I’ve never heard of anything sillier than that, but I wonder if Koncz is trying to plant a suggestion into the brain of Bradley, that’s it okay for him to lose the fight because he’ll still wind up a superstar. It’s kind of funny because it makes no sense at all. That’s not how things are done in the U.S unless you’re executive and you still get paid handsomely for failing.
Koncz said to Examiner.com “Bradley doesn’t have to win this fight. As long as Bradley goes 12 competitive rounds with Manny his life will change forever. He will be at the next level and be the superstar and maybe take the torch from Manny when Manny retires.”
Hogwash! That doesn’t make sense. Getting beaten by Pacquiao won’t turn Bradley into an overnight superstar. He’ll just be someone that gets a big hunk of cash and we’ll probably be lucky if we see him back in the ring in a year. I don’t know why it is but guys getting a big payday seems to rob them of their ambition. Either that or they spend a long time licking their injuries before they finally make a comeback.
Pacquiao and Bradley will be fighting on HBO pay per view on June 9th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bradley got the fight with Pacquiao after negotiations between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. went nowhere. It was pretty clear that Bradley was going to be the next guy to get the fight because there isn’t much left of Bob Arum’s stable of fighters after Pacquiao beat a lot of them. Bradley is a new addition, so it was only a matter of time before he got his turn. Will a fight with Pacquiao give Bradley a huge name like Koncz thinks it will. It will have Bradley wins. If not, he’ll just be another guy that got beat.