User blog comment:Miskos3/Fairy Tail Chapter 485: Five Days' Worth of Food, Review/@comment-24499036-20160516115031/@comment-7418318-20160516120709

I suppose it is possible that at least part of them being incapacitated might have been from hopelessness rather than pure physical beating.

Bradman might employ some kind of wide-area effect that brings people closer to despair, so once they are beaten down, they think there's no hope of winning and stay down, instead of fighting to their last breath.

Such a magic would have great synergy with how he's dressing in an intimidating fashion and uses fear-inspiring attacks.

If that is the case I wonder if he's able to concentrate the entire effect of the spell on a single person in an attempt to crush their sanity or at least incaparitate or distract them for long enough to finish the off physically while the victim struggles within his own mind. Kinda like Zorin Blitz tried to finish Seras Victoria or some of the Genjutsu users operate in Naruto... or Midnight for that matter, though he worked a bit differently when employing his illusions.