R.I.P. Boxing

On Saturday, June 9^th, 2012, the sport of professional boxing lost every pulse of momentum and integrity it had. 

Timothy Bradley Jr. lost that fight. Bradley knows it, his managers know it, the World Boxing Organization knows it, the fans know it…apparently everyone except C.J Ross and Duane Ford know it (of the three official judges, Jerry Roth was the only one to score in favor of Manny Pacquiao, 115-113). 

Excuse me but, YEAH RIGHT! There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that Pacquiao lost that fight. And, why was there a pre-determined rematch date? And, why was there already a mock poster designed and printed to promote the rematch? Seems like the rematch fight was destined to take place no matter what happend this weekend...

The decision from the judges Saturday night was repulsive. Granted, I’m not an avid boxing fan by any stretch of imagination, but I’m not blind either. Anyone who watched that fight knows that Manny Pacquiao was robbed, blatantly.

Since the fight, I haven’t been able to stop reading the millions of comments and opinions from boxing writers and fans (my twitter feed literally exploded, nothing else mattered. If you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t have even know that Lebron got the Heat into the NBA Finals that same night). One comment in particular grabbed my attention, a tweet from boxing-great Lennox Lewis.

Taken directly from Lewis’ verified twitter account, “Pac won the fight. Bradley won the decision…Boxing lost its integrity and the fans lost confidence.”…I could not have said it better if I tried (actually, I can't say it better, I did try).

Lewis summed it up perfectly for all of us. Bradley won the decision, and that’s all he won. Pacquiao was absolutely dominant in the fight; landing more punches in 10 of the 12 rounds as the aggressor. In total, he outlanded Bradley 253 punches (34%) to 159 (%19) (check out the CompuBox Stats). In the sixth round Pacquiao even trapped Bradley in the corner and unloaded. Bradley was defeated, tired, looked baffled at times...as pop culture goes, he got "rocked." There was no question as to who won the fight...until the judges decision was announced.

Controversial decision? Not even close. Try a flat-out lie (I mean, come on, Bradley attended the post-fight press conference in a wheel chair). For those of you who say the fix was on, I can't provide any incriminating findings, but I’m not going to disagree with you.

Here’s a quote from Dan Rafael’s ESPN Boxing article on the fight, “Even Bradley's manager, Cameron Dunkin, had it 8-4 for Pacquiao.”

Here’s a quote from Bob Arum of Top Rank, taken from the same article…upon telling Bradley that he did very well, Arum said he got the following response, “I tried hard and I couldn’t beat the guy.”

And another quote from Bob Arum, who promotes both Pacquiao and Bradley, “Something like this is so outlandish, it's a death knell for the sport.”

And another, “You have these old f---- who don't know what the hell they're looking at. It's incompetence. Nobody who knows anything about boxing could have Bradley ahead in the fight."

Right, so, you know how I feel about it and it isn't good. Whoever believes that fight was on the up-and-up is objectively insane. Drop a line in the comments.

Tweet Follow @sethbreeden