Timothy Bradley has reiterated that he defeated Manny Pacquiao in their first fight after twelve years of opposition to the result.
Discussing what World Boxing News described at the time as being ‘one of the worst robberies in the history of the sport,’ Bradley doubles down on his greatest triumph.
Despite losing a rematch and a trilogy bout in dominant fashion, Bradley insists the first encounter, which led to a wave of controversy, was a bonafide win for him.
Speaking to Shawn Porter on ‘The Porter Way Podcast,’ Bradley answered after the host said: “Let’s talk about that fight [the first one]. You had three fights with Manny Pacquiao. But that first one, what you went through after the fight, is well documented?”
A feral Bradey stared at the camera and replied:” Yeah, I do. I’ve talked about it on numerous shows. It’s crazy because, to this day, I still feel like I won that fight. I don’t care what anybody else says.
“I get people coming up to me all the time saying, ‘You won that fight’ and ‘Tim, you won that fight! But I don’t even have to see them. They see me and say, “That’s Bradley,” and “By the way, you won that fight with Pacquiao!
“Now, I don’t know if they are lying to me, but for the most part, I get people saying that to me all the time. So I got people who are not close to me saying, “Hey, you won that fight.”
He added: “It was a close fight.” But people are saying, ‘No, it wasn’t.’ Let me tell you, Yes, it was. It was a close fight. 115-113 [to me] all the way across the board.”
The abuse Bradley suffered in the aftermath was off the scale. Pacquiao was boxing’s golden fighter at that time and the pound-for-pound number one worldwide. Floyd Mayweather took the reigns back due to the Bradley loss, which WBN refused to recognize at that time.
Pacquiao proved in the next two fights that he was the far better boxer of the two, putting big question marks against Bradley’s Hall of Famer status. If the vote was based partly on the Pacquiao win, then “Desert Storm” holds a false sense of security over his place in the Hall.
WBN only gave Bradley the first and tenth rounds. Pacquiao won every other round on a 118-110 scorecard. What anybody else was watching remains up for a hot debate.
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