Experts' predictions for Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley

Manny Pacquiao (left) makes the fourth defense of his WBO welterweight title Saturday against Timothy Bradley (right) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. (AP)

SI.com's boxing experts predict Saturday's welterweight title fight between Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley (9 p.m. ET, HBO PPV). Share your prediction in the comments below.

CHRIS MANNIX

Come on, really? Bradley is an easy-to-hit fighter with a questionable chin, zero power and a willingness to trade punches. What am I missing here? I know, I know: Juan Manuel Marquez gave Pacquiao a lot of trouble in their last fight. But Marquez is a tactician with 24 rounds of experience in the ring with Pacquiao to work with; Bradley has not been in with anyone close to that level. Bradley talks a great game and win or lose there are a handful of fights (Amir Khan, Marquez, Zab Judah) that I’d like to see him in. But this is a collect-a-$5 million-paycheck-and-get-out kind of fight. I saw a very focused Pacquiao at training camp last week. If that focus produces anything close to a routine Pacquiao performance, well, it’s lights out Bradley. Pacquiao by ninth-round knockout.

RICHARD O'BRIEN

This should be a terrific fight -- and far more competitive than the oddsmakers (and my odd colleague Chris Mannix) are predicting. Pacquiao may well be a changed man, having found religion (or, maybe, having pretended to find religion to keep Jinkee from taking him to the cleaners), but I expect him to be very much the same fighter he has been. Put the relatively poor showing against Marquez down to personal turmoil or leg cramps or just the fact that Marquez is one fighter who has Manny’s number. Whatever the cause, I don’t think it means much. If anything, it should motivate Pacquiao all the more to make an impressive showing this time out. And, yes, Pacquiao is 33, but I don’t expect the "old-overnight" scenario to come into play here. All that is to say that I think we’ll see a full-powered Manny Pacquiao Saturday night. And I still think he could lose.

Bradley is a very accomplished and very versatile fighter. He’s younger, stronger and faster -- of both hand and foot -- than anyone Pacquiao has faced in years. Bradley can lead, counter, fight at a distance or in close. He has faced nearly a dozen southpaws in his career. I think his reputation as a dirty, head-butting fighter is overblown -- but that’s just one more thing that Manny will have to think about in there.

Bradley’s no washed-up or over-blown opponent. He’s young but experienced and palpably hungry. He’s also in fantastic shape. That might not be enough if he gets caught by a Pacquiao bomb early. But if he can control the distance, use his speed and keep Pacquiao from blasting away from angles, it could be a difficult affair for Manny.

Just for fun, I’m calling the upset. Bradley by close decision.

BRYAN ARMEN GRAHAM

Everyone agrees Pacquiao needs a sensational performance now more than ever to prove he's still the "typhoon blowing across the Pacific," as Larry Merchant once dubbed him, an athlete capable of those flashpoints of exhilarating destruction not seen since Tyson. But let's face it: it's been more than two-and-a-half years since he knocked anyone out. Once uncannily impervious to distraction, the demands of political life have compromised his edge. (See: the sparring session he was content to indulge Mosley in.) The hyperkinetic punisher who bludgeoned Oscar De La Hoya into retirement with a thousand left hands and nearly decapitated Ricky Hatton ain't walking through that door. Maybe the resourceful Bradley, buoyed by the soaring confidence of a young man who doesn't know how to lose, is in the right place at the right time. ("I truly believe it's going to be an easy fight," he's said in interviews.)

 Pacquiao by ninth-round TKO.