Boxing sinks to a new low.

With subscriptions to the pay per view channel flagging, it seems the only way to revive interest is to do something controversial like rob one of the biggest draws of the decision, in order to ensure his next fight will be more popular. Manny Pacquiao easily beats the American Timothy Bradley on points, unless of course you are a corrupt boxing official under instructions.

Of course scoring in boxing is subjective which can always lead to differences in opinion, but stats like landing 253 punches to 159, with power punches landed 190 to 108, make you wonder what these officials give points for. The problem is, it is easy to fix a fight if there hasn't been a knock-out, and the politics involved in all of the different versions of world titles means that there is always the possibility and opportunity for controversial decisions. The boxing public are not catered for whatsoever, and bad publicity like this only sells more subscriptions with the chance for a wronged fighter to gain his revenge.

The gathered media all thought that Pacquiao had scored a comfortable victory, and even Bradley's manager had his man losing by around 5 rounds. All this result does is ensure a much higher profile re-match, which Pacquiao will win comfortably to facilitate a third fight, or the big one with Floyd Mayweather who is currently in prison for assaulting his ex-partner. The amount of money generated by these fights is staggering, so ensuring a fight gets the "right" decision is quite easy to arrange.

The only decent thing about this farce was the way Pacquiao conducted himself knowing he had been robbed, graciously congratulating Bradley and immediately agreeing to a re-match.

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Without seeing any of the footage, post fight, could it be that because there is so much money in these sort of fights, that Pacquiao's acceptance of the result is more to do with the big bucks rematch?

It does seem that actual winning becomes secondary to engineering more hard cash.

Well Bob Arum who promoted the fight, and has a contract with both fighters said he will make an absolute fortune from the rematch, but it was the most disgraceful thing he'd seen in all his years in boxing, and he's 81. He also said Bradley said to him before the decision was announced, he tried his best but Paquiao was just too good for him.

It's the kind of thing that is making boxing a joke and apart from the very biggest fights, no-one is watching it anymore.

Tis hardly shocking though is it Jock? It's been this way since the early days of Tyson really, shame because I am one of those fans (I used to box a bit as well) that just can't stomach all the bullshit.

The Froch fight was a shining beacon of talent and sportsmanship. It used to be the norm.

Well I suppose it's been going on since boxing earned anyone money, but this was so blatant and so high profile. It's the kind of thing that will stop Paquiao wanting to fight in the U.S. again. He could fight exclusively in the Philippines and ensure he gets given every close verdict, not that this fight was even close, but it wouldn't make him as much money.

If you were him would you fight Mayweather in the US now? It will stop kids taking up the sport as well.

It amazes me that anyone believes anything in boxing these days so this isn't exactly world rocking. Boxing for the last 20 years or more has become a slightly different version of WWF wrestling. I used to love boxing in the days of Ali, Foreman, Frazier and even our own Henry. Now, any up and coming name who can sell tickets is fed a line of washed up crap to fight so the record shows enough wins to their name to get the masses interested. How the hype is even believed is beyond me. I simply don't watch it anymore.

I know that diluting boxing to having 4 or 5 different versions of world titles, and so many weight divisions now, still waiting for the Fat Bastard Weight limit to be finalised before I start training, makes it a bit of a farce compared with the good old days, but boxing is one test of skill or power that should be enjoyed by all without any need to be questioning who is best.

Like the 100m shows who is the fastest runner, ok drug cheats exist I know, boxing should come down to who is the best fighter, not who can make the most money for someone else, or who has paid the judges the most money.

It's a sad thing jock that once again money rules everything. And, once again it is the involvement of TV and it's riches that is the catalist for change. As soon as enough money is involved in anything then it becomes tainted by the greedy who control it. Even such things as snooker and darts have followed the same patern and splits take place where the best in both camps never meet.

Just watched the Rumble in the Jungle on ESPN classics.....them were the days.

Ali Bomaye,Ali Bomaye!

I am even finding the Euro's hard to stomach now with all the blatant commercialism and as for that amateur sportsman event the Olympics, don't get me started.

Sad news about Teofilo Stevenson. 3 time Olympic Gold medalist who turned down a fortune to go professional and fight Ali, because Cuba didn't allow professional sports. He could have fled Cuba easily but stayed loyal to their beliefs.

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Has got like professional wrestling now, where everybody has some sort of title and more like showbiz than a sport.

So do we think that that Teofilio would have beaten Ali? Was Ali really the greatest? I suspect he was. Despite Stevenson being amateur in name only, he was Cuban don't forget, he only fought to amateur rules which means 3 rounds of 3 minutes and thats it. Ali was used to fighting for 15 3s and I think he would have seen him off in the end. One other thing that springs to mind about this is that Cuba used to win lots of gold medals at the Olympics in various events and it doesn't seem to be anything like as successful anymore.

For the same reasons as Bulgaria, East Germany and Romania.

3 X 3 minute rounds is a far cry from going 15 as it was back then, or even 12 X 3 minute rounds, so I would expect that Ali would have used that to his advantage.

Still, Stevenson is an all time Olympic great in my eyes, and if it wasn't for Cuba boycotting the games in 1980 he may well have won 4 golds.

Cuba has a great history of doing well in the Olympic boxing, and it used to be used as such a great propaganda tool, showing how such a small poor country could outdo the might of the USA, and I think thta attitudes have changed and they probably spend less and less each year on the coaching and looking after any half decent boxer, that they now don't have the advantage they used to over other nations.

I think Cuba loses a fair few talented sporting stars now, to baseball in particular, and to boast about the prowess of the boxers, but not mention how many flee to play professional baseball, would look pretty silly.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

So do we think that that Teofilio would have beaten Ali? Was Ali really the greatest? I suspect he was. Despite Stevenson being amateur in name only, he was Cuban don't forget, he only fought to amateur rules which means 3 rounds of 3 minutes and thats it. Ali was used to fighting for 15 3s and I think he would have seen him off in the end. One other thing that springs to mind about this is that Cuba used to win lots of gold medals at the Olympics in various events and it doesn't seem to be anything like as successful anymore.

Winning gold at the Olympics certainly seemed to be the way to go-Ali,Frazier,Foreman and Lewis all took that route on the way to the heavyweight title.Maybe Stephenson would have been a natural contender for Ali's title,he would needed to have been bleddy good though-IMHO Ali, prior to his expulsion in 1967,was far and away the best that i've ever seen,just too fast in footwork and handspeed.If he hadn't been Kluxerred by the authorities,i would say that he would never have lost a fight-imagine how good he would have been at his peak,which effectively would have been in his years in the wilderness.Sad news about Teofilio,another icon from that era bites the dust.

At least the authorities are now looking into the fight and having 5 independant judges see if they agree with the original verdict.

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So the WBO have asked 5 International boxing judges to review the Pacquiao fight he was controversially beaten in, and all 5 say he should have won the fight. The result won't be overturned and he was already guaranteed a re-match, but it shows how crooked boxing is.

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