Pacquiao vs Bradley: WBO to Review Fight With Five Judges

The WBO, who had their welterweight title at stake on Saturday night in the Manny Pacquiao vs Timothy Bradley fight, will review the bout with five international officials, according to President Paco Valcarcel.

This is nothing to do with Bob Arum's request for an investigation from the Nevada attorney general, or anything to do with the official judges for the bout. This is a sanctioning body review. They could make a decision about their belt, but not about the official result of the fight or anything like that.

Sanctioning bodies doing this is not really unusual, and I don't mean to put a damper on anything, but it probably won't amount to much. If they stripped Tim Bradley, it would come off as bias toward Pacquiao, I think, because sanctioning bodies have the smooth, velvet touch of a brick to the head most of the time.

The best thing they can probably do here is order a rematch, and do their part in making that a reality. If they mandate that Bradley must face Manny Pacquiao, and then those two do not meet in November (and/or don't meet and don't set up a deal with the WBO that lets Bradley take an optional defense), Bradley could lose his belt that way, which would, if that were to happen (and I'm not saying it will), be the third time Bradley had lost a sanctioning body title without actually receiving a loss in the ring. The WBC twice stripped him of their belt at 140 pounds for daring to take good fights, or sit out a whopping six months.

The WBO has a good history with Pacquiao, and Valcarcel gave Pacquiao a ring at last week's press conference. But don't forget that they have history with Bradley, too, as they did not strip him of his 140-pound belt last year when he sat out a portion of 2011 to get his promotional situation sorted. Held their 140-pound title from April 2009 until now, and has never had issues with them.