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PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY April 16 - 30, 2016
COMMENTARIES/ SPORTS
Spectator
Will Pacquiao’s win over Bradley
translate into votes?
By Al S. Mendoza
MANNY Pacquiao won,
all right.
But
was
it
really
convincing?
Hardly. He won it
hands down but not totally
significant.
Modesty aside, I also
scored the fight 116-110 in
Pacquiao’s favor.
A friend of mine seated
beside me during the fight
said to me in jest: “Why, all
the three judges copied your
score.”
The fight was the easiest
to score.
Timothy Bradley Jr.
hardly connected in the entire
12 rounds but still, I gave
him four rounds. Out of pity?
Maybe.
If honesty is the best
policy, generosity is also a
good policy. Uplifts the spirit.
Pacquiao dominated the
fight virtually from beginning
to end.
He still had the moves
of a young fighter, although
slightly a bit slower now. And
not as hard a puncher as he
used to be.
Twice
he
floored
Bradley. Twice
he didn’t finish
Bradley off.
He
didn’t
fail.
He just didn’t
want to send
Bradley
to
dreamland.
Isn’t
B r a d l e y
Bible-bound
alongside
Pacquiao?
In the seventh, Bradley
fell from getting hit by a
left below the ear after first
absorbing a right hook.
Pacquiao did not pursue
a knockout after Bradley got a
standing 8-count. He merely
went through the motions of
finishing the round.
Afraid that he might get
hit by a lucky punch if he tried
mixing it up?
The ghost of a knockout
loss from a lucky punch
courtesy of Juan Manuel
Marquez still haunts him four
years after the fact?
Bradley got decked
again in the ninth, this time
by a harder left to the kisser
that sent him tumbling and
somersaulting.
After another 8-count,
Pacquiao again did not go for
the kill.
Same reason? Scared
of Marquez’s phantom punch
suddenly materializing in the
heat of an exchange?
In the olden days,
Pacquiao would turn tiger
at the slightest opening,
unleashing a rain of punches
until his prey has finally
crumpled on the floor—limp
as an empty sack.
If the years had softened
his rock-hard fists, I am not
surprised.
The last time he scored
a stoppage was in 2009 yet.
And it was not even a
knockout victory but rather, a
TKO win over Miguel Cotto.
Pacquiao was mercilessly
pummeling Cotto with hits
to the face when the referee
said enough is enough and
declared a 12th-round TKO
loss for the Puerto Rican.
In the intervening seven
years after that, Pacquiao has
stopped stopping his foes.
He could only score
knockdowns, punctuated by
those 6 knockdowns he dealt
Chris Algieri before PacMan
lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr.
on May 2, 2015.
After beating Bradley a
second time, Pacquiao said
he was retiring.
Nobody believed him.
Me, too.
But if he did retire, was
it done in a blaze of glory?
Hardly.
Did his win translate into
votes for his senatorial bid on
May 9? Hardly, too.
But this I can tell you,
fellas: Should he win next
month at the polls, it will be
as hard a pill to swallow.
* * * * * *
Bryants retires in blaze
of glory; Curry stars, too
HOW can one scoring
60 points retire as a basketball
player?
Why will Kobe Bryant
leave the game when his 60point output was more than
half of his team’s total of 101
points?
At 39, he didn’t look it,
much less huff and puff as he
should at that age.
But no. He even sparked
the Los Angeles Lakers’
come-from-behind victory on
Thursday over the Utah Jazz,
triggering the longest standing
ovation from a sellout crowd
in NBA history.
And Bryant was no
stranger to 60-point games.
Before this farewell
game that was more of a farce
farewell than anything, Bryant
had done 60-point games five
times before.
In shouldering the Lakers
home to an unexpected
victory, Bryant fired 15 of
his team’s last 17 points in a
blazing finish that totally saw
him defy Father Time.
Fittingly, Bryant made
his 60th point with a ringle ss
free throw in the waning
seconds of the game.
Dramatically, Bryant
ended his 20-year NBA career
by dishing off an assist that
sealed the Lakers’ 101-96
Bigger, pricey fight not soon for champ Donaire
It may take a while before
WBO
superbantamweight
champion Nonito Donaire
Jr. gets to fight in a marquee
bout that he’s been longing
for.
Moments after knocking out title challenger Zsolt
Bedak of Hungary in the
third round Saturday night
in Cebu, Donaire stated his
eagerness to battle either fellow champion Carl Frampton
or ex-tormentor Guillermo
Rigondeaux of Cuba.
“I’ve been asked this million times before but I’ll say
(I want to face) the best out
there,” Donaire told reporters inside his dressing room.
“If it’s Frampton, if it’s Rigondeaux, if it’s (Hugo) Ruiz, if it’s
anybody that feels that they
are better than me, come inside the ring, I’m waiting for
you.”
A battle with Frampton
could only be possible by the
end of the year as the unbeaten WBA and IBF 122-lb kingpin is set to move up in weight
and battle WBA featherweight
champion Leo Santa Cruz of
Mexico tentatively set on July
30 in New York.
Rigondeaux, meanwhile,
was supposed to see action
last month in Liverpool opposite British hope James Dickens but was called off after
the Cuban failed to obtain a
visa.
The 35-year-old Rigondeaux (16-0, 10 knockouts)
scored a stunning decision
win over Donaire in their unification battle last April, 2013
in New York.
Rigondeaux is the mandatory challenger to Framp-
ton but the Cuban could
meet one of the top contenders of the WBA should the
superbantamweight crown be
declared vacant depending
on the result of Frampton’s
featherweight bid.
“I know I’m going to get
it. That’s why I want to build
up my name. I have the belt
and will try to get the other belts. I’m willing to fight
them. I want to fight them,”
said Donaire ‘If it’s not Rigondeaux or Frampton, everyone
else will just be an activity
fight.”
Donaire’s win over Bedak was his first title defense
after winning the WBO belt
by decisioning Mexican Cesar Juarez last December in
Puerto Rico.(D. Principe, mb)
CONT NEXT PAGE
Nonito Donaire walks to his corner as Hungarian Zsolt
Bedak (foreground) struggles to get up after being
floored for the second time in the second round of
their WBO super bantamweight title fight last Saturday
night in Cebu City. Donaire knocked down his rival one
more time in the third to keep his crown. (Juan Carlo
de Vela)
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