Odd guy this Erik Morales. A placid introvert, given to sullenness, brilliant counter punching boxer who’s won titles in three different weight classes, beginning at bantamweight and yet seldom gets written about by boxing beat writers. The hawk faced boy wonder is no boxing cover boy, still he’s marketed ubiquitously appearing on Mexican television. Self-absorbed and self effacing, has an elephants memory – especially for opponents like Marco Antonio Barrera who hit him at press conferences – yet, typically, respects those whom he vows to hate, entering battle. His hate is born of professional necessity. Morales has to find a point of revulsion, in order to fabricate the mind set of a warrior on a mission against his future opponent, Barrera being a notable exception. Morales doesn’t need to find reasons to hate the charming Barrera. The reports of animosity between Morales and Barrera are not fabrications; it’s just Barrera is more PR savvy, having offered several token laurel branches to the man he knows remains his key rival for all time greatness.
Though Barrera knows rhetorical flowers will not dissuade “Erik the Great”, let alone disarm him. Still, Barrera looks all the more reasonable for having tried to make peace. Put that one down to optics. For his part, Morales lacks Barrera’s disingenuous sophistication. He’s more a country boy at heart, if not by geographic circumstance then by temperament and inclination. Morales has little time for the overtly political, the hypocritical, the pliable surface of things. Like his saturation boxing, he prefers to get to the heart of the matter, the issue, the fight at hand. Daunting figures such as Daniel Zaragoza, Junior Jones and Kevin Kelley found out just how elemental Morales can be in a boxing ring.
Stripping away the elaborations of technique, Morales, 47-1 (34), comes at his opponent poised, balanced, punishing defective patterns or rebounding from defensive postures to all out attacking combinations. There’s zeal if not glee to Morales’ combat. Resolutely displaying strength combined with endurance, “El Terrible” can box fitfully or with all out aggression. There’s not much of the extraneous about Erik Morales. His taunt championship body more like a flicking knife, than flesh and blood animation. Almost devoid of expression in the ring, his eyes sunken, are mainly variations on the general theme of economy, like his buzzed-clean black hair and sheering combinations.
The pride of Tijuana boxing circles trains in the Otomi Mountains like a ring zealot, for years punishing himself to fight at a dehydrated 122 or 126lbs, though he loves to spend time in the gym with young fighters as mentor and cheerleader. Son of Mexican flyweight mediocrity Jose Morales, he navigates between being his own man as champion boxer and riding out the expectations as a master pupil of a rueful father figure. A control freak and perfectionist by natural design, Erik Morales loves managing his musical band, working out promotional interests and commercial opportunities, in between his training regiment.
Having turned professional at 16, in 1993, Morales hit the wall of career diffidence in 2001, stumbling through two 12 round title defenses, against Guty Espadas in February, and In Jin Chi in July. A reasonable critique would point out he was still essentially hung over from his February 19, 2000 thriller against Marco Antonio Barrera or over confident, having registered a thrashing of Kevin Kelley, in El Paso, to begin September of 2000. Then again Espadas and Morales would meet again and Chi would go on to become a world champion. So in matters fistic, net outcomes, like expectations, can be dangerous grounds for misconceptions.
Was Morales about to go the way of Wilfredo Benitez? Writing off Morales was becoming common place by the time Barrera thumped “Prince” Naseem Hamed, April 7, 2001. Was Morales just worn out, aged 26 and on the skids? Boy genius melts before the full dawning of epic career realization? Not quite. June 22, 2002 he gave a ruggedly stylish performance in losing a decision to the dreaded Marco Antonio Barrera; his swallowing of that loss became an ironic antidote for the critical malaise that had followed him since his having been granted the original decision win over MAB in 2000.
Losing that decision to Barrera, when many felt he’d earned the victory, rejuvenated Morales as the championship level fighter and his reputation. For the first time ever, he gained the sympathy vote in having been jilted, applauded for having been misjudged, for taking up where Barrera had left off two years before, the uncrowned champion of the featherweights. HBO were trumpeting Barrera as legendary, just as Morales was finding his sense of renewal. Then all he had to do was prove to himself that he indeed was as interested in his future and fate as he’d always been. So, he reluctantly flew to Las Vegas – he hates to fly – and clinically chopped up nice guy Paulie Ayala over 12 rounds. His February 28, 2004 annexing of Jesus Chavez’s jr. lightweight championship made him a three division titlist and an enduring champion within his generation. When Manny Pacquiao dismantled the legend of Barrera with shuddering ease, Morales was translating his best technical boxing, readying himself for a sedge of the jr. lightweight division and eventually the reign of the relentless WBC champ Jesus Chavez.
The quiet guy with the loud ring record has always taken on the very best around. Morales will be happy to oblige Manny Pacquiao or Juan Manuel Marquez or what ever contender he’s compelled to drub, but after the final instalment of Morales-Barrera or Barrera-Morales. Either way, the logic of two razor thin decisions, inadvertently reversed, demands a final redress of this lingering question. And that’s the point. Questions still do linger. Morales for all his supposed advantages in size and weight, cannot manage to dominate with power or stylistics against Barrera. Just as the all rounder Barrera cannot formulate a decisive campaign against Morales.
Stalemates are for chess. Morales may have predicted a knockout, but he always does; it’s part of his pre-fight mental exercising, to envision the ultimate scene of victory. He going to try and play the good ‘big’ man to Barrera’s good slightly ‘smaller’ man. Fond of saying he’s stronger than ever at 130, the detonations of his punches are not doing the damage they did when he was a smaller, dehydrated, man.
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
Whether or not that was original advice from Henry VII to his golden haired son Henry VIII, the sentiment of proximity and dangerous calculation rings eternally true.
For twelve rounds or less these two Mexican greats are going to be close and closer, most of the night. Featherweights fighting over the limit, one might hasten to add. Much is expected. And nothing is really on the line for this one, except a title belt, the glory of a nation, pound for pound accreditation, bragging rights for the rest of their lives, the bigger colour picture in the history books or data archives of the future and a very special video to take out when over come by the need to indulge the hunger of memory.
