Before last Sunday, unbeaten Tim Bradley was, at worst, only daring, taunting Manny Pacquiao over his alleged loss of intensity and killer instinct.
Bradley kept crying about Pacquiao’s supposed tameness and timidity—as evidenced by his soft, compassionate windup against the outmatched Brandon Rios in Macau last November—without unnecessarily going out of bounds.
Not that Pacquiao had not acknowledged Bradley’s verbal jabs, because the eight-division world title winner had repeatedly stressed that the original Pacman would promptly be there in their April 12 rematch.
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Either Bradley had a change of diet or whatever, because he suddenly turned reckless.
He stared Pacquiao in the eye during a television face-off in California on Sunday (as neatly narrated by Lem Sattterfield of The Ring) before shrieking in mock disgust: “The killer instinct, it’s no longer there and he can’t get it back, it’s gone, Manny. You can’t sit there and say certain things that you would like to say because of what you believe in. It’s not there anymore.”
Bradley was, in fact, so incensed he barely missed being malicious in crying that Pacquiao has not only lost his killer instinct but, pardon please, his balls as well.
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Cried Bradley: “I don’t know how he lost it. Before, he was malicious. Before, he was blazing like, ‘I’m going to knock you out, I don’t care.’ But now, he’s in a different place. I’m telling you, he’s not the same. He’s not the same, I’m telling you.”
Knowing Pacquiao, he would’ve smoldered inside. He instead kept his cool, before offering a calm reply: “I pray that God can give me that fire.
Another fire, I will pray for that.” Bradley pushed on. “Do you think that it’s gone? Do you think that it’s still there?”
Pacquiao refused to budge. “I believe that… Absolutely, I can do that in God’s grace. Nothing is impossible with God,” he prayed.
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Bradley, refusing to be restrained, continued to cry that he would again beat the odds and would do what he had set out to do.
He said Pacquiao can’t expect to win if he can’t knock him out. Pacquiao said he has only one plan: To throw as many punches as he can.
“I don’t care if the fight is stopped or not. I have to prove that I can still give a good show.” With all his boastful worth, the unbeaten Bradley, 30, may yet reap the whirlwind.