Finally Moving On

Manny Pacquiao and  Timothy Bradley during the rematch of their controversial 2012 title fight, Saturday night in Las Vegas.
(Courtesy: mp8.ph)

I remember very clearly the night of June 9th, 2012; well maybe not the exact date (I had to google that), but the events that transpired in Las Vegas late that summer eve have stuck with me nonetheless. I wasn't exactly expecting to witness sports history—the bad kind—, but I sure got it anyways. It was, of course, the night that Manny Pacquiao was screwed out of what should have been an easy unanimous-decision victory over Timothy Bradley, ultimately finding himself on the wrong end of one the most glaringly wrong split-decisions in history (115-113, 115-113, and 113-115).

Tim Bradley surely didn’t head down the wrong corridor and stumble into the ring by mistake that night; he is, with certainty, a world-class athlete (and had a undefeated record at the time to back him up), and fully deserved his shot at the only eight-division world champion in history. But all the worthiness in the world does not by default a winner make; you still have to earn the right to stick around, most especially with the world’s best. And speaking of world’s best, Pacquiao, for all the speculation that he was beginning the descent from his career peak, still managed to out-fight Bradley, in convincing fashion; I almost wasn’t paying attention as the scores were read that night, it seemed so obvious that Pac was to be declared winner. And then it was a close split-decision. And then Timothy Bradley was the new WBO Welterweight Champion of the World. The boos started almost immediately; after a brief dumbfounded silence, HBO’s Jim Lampley gave the call about as well as anyone could: “Well, I tell you, I don’t think we’re blind. I think Harold Lederman is the best scorer alive, and I think that is a terrible, bogus decision” (Lederman had scored it 119-109 for Pacquiao). The newly-crowed champ Bradley suggested he might go home and watch the fight on tape to “see if I won the fight really or not,” which speaks volumes without any further explanation.

For myself, I wanted to break something, as bizarre as it sounds. It was as if in an instant, I had been stopped being just a casual observer watching one of all-time greats spending another day at the office and been transformed into something else; I was now, simply by association (albeit a relatively detached one), invested into something much larger than I had ever expected. Breaking furniture over a sporting event is quite the stupid thing to do, so thankfully I did manage to stay calm and restrain myself from that; the shock and the anger, however, stuck with.

“Something must be done!,” I remember thinking to myself repeatedly, probably out loud more than once. I stayed glued to the TV, wishing that the HBO telecast would continue on for hours into the night, as if Lampley and the rest of the on-air crew’s continued dumbfounded analysis of the night’s events would somehow change the result. And before long, they did sign off, and all was chaos in the world of boxing. Over time, there were positive developments, like the WBO announcing their own official review unanimously ruled in favor of Pacquiao, and the decision by The Ring Magazine to not really count the fight in their official rankings. But almost two years later, that result still stands, and with it remains a wound to my soul.

At least I have some closure now. What happened Saturday night in Vegas, when Pacquiao and Bradley met for the second time, was more than just a big-deal rematch; it was something that needed to happen, that should’ve have happened a long time ago. It was righting a wrong. After his shocking knockout loss to Juan Manuel Márquez in their fourth bout, and a relatively unremarkable victory over Brandon Rios in Macau, Manny’s second performance against Bradley made even more clear that he is now surely past his prime; as such, it was all the more satisfying to see him claim what was rightfully his when he was finally awarded that unanimous decision (116-112, 116-112, 118-110, this time) he earned all that time ago.

I can finally say that I’ve cleansed myself of all contempt for Tim Bradley, and that I can even go back to liking him as a competitor; having gone in there, given it his all, and taken a few hard hands from the old champ, he’s earned his share of respect from me. Despite his inability to knock over an all-time great, he still isn’t bad, and he very likely has quite the future ahead of him.

For myself, the first Pacquiao-Bradley encounter will long go down as the biggest sports robbery I’ve ever had the chance to witness. But I can move on in my life from that now. Justice has finally been served, and great wound to the sweet science has finally been healed.

-Mitch Carter is an Illinois State Scholar and an Associate Member of the Kendall County Young Republicans.

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