Bradley poor pick as Manny’s next opponent

MANILA, Philippines - If Manny Pacquiao wanted to prove something, he could do a better job fighting someone else other than taking a third fight with Timothy Bradley.

This was the observation shared by AL Bernstein, a jaded American sportscaster and boxing analyst who once worked for SportsCenter, Boxing Illustrated and The Ring.

In 2012, Bernstein was inducted to the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

Bernstein said he isn’t sure where Pacquiao, who just turned 37 last December, stands right now.

“We don’t know where Manny Pacquiao has gone, has he slipped back a little further?” he told the popular boxing radio program On the Ropes.

Bernstein said he would have preferred Pacquiao facing Amir Khan, Terence Crawford or Adrien Broner for what’s being billed as the Filipino’s farewell fight.

“Yeah I kind of thought they would lean towards Crawford because that would have been at least a different fight,” said Bernstein.

“I would have preferred him fighting Khan or Crawford, (but) the fight I would have really been interested in seeing was Pacquiao and Broner. I thought that would have been fun, but obviously boxing politics made that difficult, but there was some talk,” he said.

A couple of months ago, Khan appeared to enjoy the inside track, and seemed headed to one of the two fights he had wanted all his life, the other one against Floyd Mayweather.

But there’s something about Khan or his handlers that keeps the pride of England from catching the big fish – Pacquiao or Mayweather.

Crawford also came close to winning the Pacquiao lottery, and in the final days of the hunt Broner’s name also cropped up.

But Pacquiao chose Bradley.

“Still, it will be interesting,” said Bernstein, adding that while he feels that Pacquiao beat Bradley in the first fight in 2012, “there were competitive rounds that I thought Bradley won.”

Then in the 2014 rematch, Bernstein added, “I thought Pacquiao won.”

Still, the former newspaper managing editor who also covered the Major League, NBA and NFL said Pacquiao can do nothing with Bradley to give him another shot at Mayweather.

“They actually hold some strange hope that there will be a Pacquiao-Mayweather II fight, which I can’t even imagine people being that interested in it, even if Pacquiao is brilliant against Bradley,” he said.

Bernstein feels that Pacquiao should have fought someone else.