Erik Morales has admitted that after his rubber match loss to Mexican rival Marco Antonio Barrera he wanted to make amends to his fans, his family and himself. Such was his sense of frustration, desperation and humiliation in losing to the one man who has come to represent his career nemesis, a man he openly despises. Top Rank founder Bob Arum confirmed that in the dressing room after the Barrera loss Morales was already talking up a fight with Manny Pacquiao. The obvious hook was, of course, that it had been Pacquiao who had flattened Barrera November 15, 2003. Beat the conqueror of your conqueror was Morales’ heated logic.
His father Jose and friends cautioned him against haste. Morales would hear none that kind of negative talk. In fact, he stripped down his camp and attendants to its essence and began the periodization plan from rest and recovery to tactical planning and routine regiments. This time his work at altitude in the Otomi Mountains would be mostly at weight and thus his analysis work will be of longer duration. No more mentoring up and coming fighters, not until the job of restitution had been realized. There are no sets of assumptions to have to work against, as hampered his preparation for the third go around with Barrera last fall.
Jose Morales and his son Erik have been keenly aware what Pacquiao can bring early, that scorching left hand, set up by lighting agility on offense. Moderating “Pac Man’s” early speed-power advantage represented the higher math for the Mexican veteran. Team Morales observed Pacquiao goes to the body from the side, usually with hooks leaving himself open to counters, confident he always gets the better of any incurred exchange. Beyond that, Team Morales have also digested how Marquez, unlike Barrera, was able to effectively neutralize most of Pacquiao’s offense from the middle rounds on by deflecting the right lead, angling away from the straight left and re-asserting a distance parameters from which to effectively outbox Pacquiao.
And there in lies the essence of the pre-fight planning for Morales. A situational bomber, Morales’ surest boxing has been a result of technical variety working off movement and surgical counter hitting; Morales will be going back to the future for the formula to take into the ring against the Pac-Man. And yet he’s on the record saying he will fight an exciting fight for the fans. The implied contradiction opens up the debating points for this mega-showdown. Just when Morales will decide to take the offensive lead against Pacquiao will be a major factor in deciding how successful he can be. How will he choose those mini intervals to exploit?
Morales has always been a fighter who can dictate or induce his opponents into predictability, repeating simple patterns against him. Certainly, that has been a major component of Pacquiao’s training, to avoid doing just that. Both fighters get to the body well, how the fight transitions from hard exchanges to inside body work and out again should signal how the fight is progressing. Morales wants to transition with the left hook counter and Pacquiao has been working on his right hook in training just as diligently.
Pacquiao’s strength is his applied power with speed, his ability to close distance in a single bound and that arrow-like left hand knockout shot he possesses. Morales has trained to keep Pacquiao turning, readjusting his shoulder and feet angles in order to activate his power shots. And for the great Mexican, discipline will have to trump his often impetuous need to force offensive situations that are not, in fact, defensible on the counter. With Pacquiao having worked overtime on his endurance, Team Morales have acknowledged “El Terrible” will have to be much more positionally air tight than last time out against Barrera.
And here we must note the obvious to restate context: the Morales and Pacquiao bout, taking place as it does in the wake of Morales’ loss to Barrera and Pacquiao’s unsatisfying draw against Juan Manuel Marquez, almost necessitates a fascinating interplay of strategies. Team Pacquiao suspect that the great Morales has been worn down over the last four years and thus has more and more been prone to displays of positional vulnerability from the mid rounds on. Team Morales feel that the recovery and boxing acumen shown by Marquez in their draw effectively serves as a blue print on how to defuse the electric offensive flurries of the Philippine bomber.
What makes the fight interesting is that outside observers confirm both fighters have shown themselves limited in their last outings. Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s California based trainer has dodged the idea but has been stressing offensive variety for his charge precisely because Manny doesn’t stand up to Morales in the technical department. His best avenue is to overwhelm with raw speed and hitting accuracy. The more intricate the exchanges become over an extended period the more room Morales will have to decode Pacquiao’s technique, never forgetting Marquez has already mapped out some of the ways to defuse Pacquiao’s power hitting flourishes. Morales, a much more boldly aggressive fighter going forward than Marquez, is also a superb boxer when challenged to fight with discipline. Outside of his ego-fueled bout with Barrera, Morales has a long standing reputation as a fighter who can placate opponents with a superb left jab, circling defensive movement and very clean punishing body work.
Can Morales get Pacquiao out of position to be solidly countered? The Philippine bomber prefers straight ahead attacks when he’s going to his opponents head, those perfectly straight routes for his full throttle hitting. Basically, Pacquiao believes he can set a pace at which Morales can no longer fight. Energy released vs. energy directed. And Morales knows that simply trying to play the big man didn’t work last time. He’s got to be evasive and effective, taking away the head shot from the dangerous lefty stalking and striking him full out.
How much does Morales still believe in himself? What kind of boxer can his professional discipline still make appear? Has Pacquiao really forgotten how close he came to experiencing a glorious knockout victory turned around into a lesson from a minor master, Marquez?
Questions abound, making these last hours of waiting for Morales-Pacquiao that much more worth debating ever last possible detail as to what is really destined to happen.
