Now selling: Third Encounter of a different kind
They continue to throw in extenders and enhancers to make the trilogy taste and look great.
Sorry, wrote the famous novelist Ivan Goldman. Staging a third fight between Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley is an exercise in futility, a slur on the noble sport of boxing.
“It’s like throwing a terrific porterhouse steak on the grill and cooking it into burnt rubber,” Goldman said.
“You get a piece of meat that can never be rare again.”
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There was no way to control the frenzied drumbeaters.
Yesterday alone, there was a deafening rush of claims and testimonials on how and why the third Pacquiao-Bradley would be of a totally different kind.
Both Pacquiao and Bradley tried bravely to put the yawns generated by their two previous encounters behind them.
Pacquiao said he expected an improved, stronger, hopefully more combative Bradley inside the ring on April 9.
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A timely tout, considering that the earlier two encounters did not live up to desperate pay-per-view pretensions due to lack of solid, terrifying clashes, a result mainly of undue caution and over-evasiveness of one party.
Anyway, the most solid proof Bradley could be a better, braver combatant this time was his knockout conquest last year of the brash former world titlist Brandon Rios, who had never been stopped previously.
That alone cannot be expected to suitably perk up ticket and ppv sales.
* * *
Just the same, Bradley continued with his sales pitch, saying his new trainer was singly behind his tremendous transformation.
In fact, Bradley said trainer Teddy Atlas has laid out greater plots to ensure a conquest of Pacquiao.
This was revealed over the weekend to veteran columnist Bill Dwyre, newly retired sports editor of the Los Angeles Times, by Bradley himself.
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As expected, Bradley refused to lend even a minor move or detail in the Atlas fight plan.
Everything would supposedly be brought out in the open only on fight night in Las Vegas.
Maybe Dwyre had wanted more solid and believable details to help sell the tottering trilogy.
The most he could squeeze out from Bradley though was a cryptic label that Atlas has put on the cap of the fight blueprint.
* * *
“Log in the Ocean.”
Dwyre could not make head or tail of it, but was generous enough to say that the mystifying thing could help sell the April 9 third encounter.
It’s intriguing enough, sensational enough to steal the fancy of experts and spectators alike.
Yes, there’s enough reason to try the original Manny Pacquiao vs Riddle Bradley, the trilogy.
Careful: there’s no solid assurance the third encounter would not be of the same old tasteless kind.
