Pacquiao conquerors clash today

AROUND noon today,  Timothy Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez, the two fighters who beat Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao last year,  will square off at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas for the WBO welterweight title which Bradley wrested from Pacquiao via a controversial split decision.

Oddsmakers have not given either boxer an advantage, declaring  the fight, which seems to have drawn minimum publicity, evenly matched.

Neither Bradley nor Marquez  will agree that the match is even  especially with Bradley blasting  El Dinamita for  overconfidence and arrogance.

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“Confidence is everything when it comes to fighting. The more confident you are, I think the better you perform,” Bradley had told  ESPN.com, adding that Marquez’s  confidence right now is “through the roof, it’s almost to the point where it’s  pretty  damn near arrogance.”

Because of Marquez’s  “all-time high” overconfidence, Bradley said he believes he’ll be met in the center of the ring today by  an aggressive fighter intent on pushing  the action and testing his chin early.

Bradley added that this  will work against the Mexican boxer  whose overconfidence stems from  the devastating knockout he dealt the eight-division world titlist Pacquiao in their fourth encounter last December.

“I hope he (Marquez) presses the action because that will be his biggest mistake,” Bradley said. “If he tries to go at my pace, he’s going to die out.”

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For a while there, today’s title fight was  almost cancelled.

Sometime in June, Bradley  had threatened to withdraw from the fight  unless Marquez submits himself to random drug testing.

According to MyBoxingFans.Com,  Bradley requested the test  because he believes that  Marquez is “on to some thing due to the hard punch he delivered that knocked out Pacquiao  and because Marquez works with one of the most notorious  strength and conditioning coaches in the sport, Angel Guillermo  ‘Memo’ Heredia, who had admitted in court that  he had supplied many athletes involved in the Balco case with performance-enhancing drugs.”

Heredia has also done videos that document  how athletes can hide  the use of these PED’s.

Marquez had agreed to  Bradley’s request. The only conflict was the agency that will conduct the test  since the NSAC (Nevada State Athletic  Commission) doesn’t do random  testing and Top Rank promoter Bob Arum would not agree  to independent agencies doing it.

Arum said Marquez, who has so far never been tested positive for drugs, was not tested  before the last fight with the Pacman.  But this time, Arum wanted him tested.  Bradley is under Top Rank Promotions, just like Pacquiao.

Marquez was never tested for drugs for today’s fight, however.

In previous wire reports, Marquez had said he has been working very hard for the Bradley fight because he wants a fifth world title, which is unprecedented for a Mexican boxer.  He said he is undergoing the same training  and conditioning he did for his last fight with Pacquiao.

“It’s like the same training camp I had for Manny Pacquiao, except speed is more important for this fight with Bradley. Speed is more important,” Marquez said.

When Arum was  arranging the next Pacquiao bout  after his losses last year to Bradley and Marquez,  the two candidates that immediately came to his mind were Pacquiao’s conquerors. But both said no despite the immense purses they were offered. Arum then did the next best thing and arranged  a fight between the two instead.

The  Marquez-Bradley fight will be aired over GMA 7  today starting at 11 a.m.