Well, they don't bloom on new wood, so it has to be at least a year old to bloom. Which isn't really very compatible with that technique -- to my knowledge, I believe that pollards are cut back to the stubs each year to encourage new growth.

I cut back an old, really overgrown apple once to large main trunk and branches only, and it responded pretty much the way a pollard would, throwing a ton of new shoots all tightly packed together. I had to selectively remove almost all of them and just allow a few to grow. It's a really nice tree again, with a good shape and very productive. So, the selective method probably would work.

Why would anyone do that to a fruit tree in the first place? Poor things. Usually, this is just done with something which is grown primarily for foliage. I think catalpa and linden are two popular choices for this.