A great night of boxing was had by all in attendance, this past Saturday, here in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand! It was an especially great night for fans of Mexican Pugilism. All four of the featured Mexican fighters on the HBO Pay Per View card came out on top. It started out with Martin Castillo winning a convincing decision over Eric Morel to retain his WBA super flyweight championship. It concluded with Erik Morales winning a close but unanimous 12 round decision over Manny Pacquiao in a splendid battle. Sandwiched in between was a one sided stoppage by Julio Cesar Chavez Jr over just an opponent, and a fantastic 10th round TKO win by Jorge Arce over Hussein Hussein in a real pier sixer that could have been staged in a phone booth or broom closet. Although Arce would come out the winner, his faced looked like something out of Zale and Graziano. He looked like he had been through a meat grinder. It was good stuff, fun to watch and really exemplified what we love about the true Mexican warriors of the sport.
The main event between Morales and Pacquiao was something kind of special, ebb and flow at times, but it basically boiled down to a few things. Morales? size was a key factor, but the biggest advantage for Erik was the fact that he is just the more complete boxing package. He has the entire arsenal going for him along with a granite chin. He has also really proven himself in the big fights and he knows how to win close fights. Pacquiao, on the other hand, is, as I mentioned last week, a bit one-dimensional at times. Too often he lunges in with the right jab and left cross with not enough angles and not enough 3 and 4 punch combinations. He becomes a little too predictable for the great fighters, like Morales, and Marquez figured his style out somewhat as well.
I did, however, see some improvement on his behalf even though he came up a little short. He did work the body early and should have never abandoned the attack, which he did. He did throw and land a few more right hooks, a punch he really needs to work on for the future and, more importantly, he showed a plethora of intestinal fortitude during the fight. After being cut and not being able to have his way with the bigger Morales and even looking a bit befuddled and tired at times, he managed to weather a number of ?El Terrible? storms and hang in there, steal some rounds and finish like a champion winning and hurting Morales in the final round. Would have loved to see rounds 13, 14, 15, wouldn’t you??
As for Morales, the guy is simply a Hall of Famer, the consummate and complete fighter, offense, defense, head, body every punch in the book, great heart, grit and determination, smarts, he has it all. My only complaint if I were working his corner would be at times he may makes things more difficult than they have to be. If he would utilize his jab even more to set up his right hand, and also use his stick as a defensive mechanism he would avoid a lot of problems. Well you know what, if he did that and thought about safety first, he wouldn’t be the ?El Terrible? we have come to know and love to watch fight would he?? And that is exactly what he said in the post fight press conference.
The more than 14 thousand fans in attendance all went home with huge smiles on their faces, even those rooting for Manny. And you can bet the Pak Man left the arena with mucho more Mexican fans. They love fighters who display heart and true grit along with talent, and Manny has an abundance of that stuff. The Mexicans will now root for Manny, unless he’s fighting one of their own that is, and he should once again be fighting one of their own, in rematches with Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera, or Juan Manuel Marquez. All three terrific Mexican hombres may lie ahead in his future and all three would be great fights. Manny may be able to do better in rematches with Morales and Marquez if he can improve on his arsenal just a bit. He certainly would be helped having his choice of the Reyes gloves for a rematch with Morales. Barrera has proven he can fight better at times in rematches, he showed that against Morales in their 2nd and 3rd epic battles and he is so smart and cagey that he would not doubt put up a better fight the second time around against Pacquiao, as he may have underestimated him a little in their first go at it. So between Pac Man, Morales, Barrera, and Marquez some great future fights can be made which is good for everyone.
I want to say something about the atmosphere at the MGM on Saturday night; it was very exciting, positive all the way through and scintillating for the entire 2 main bouts. Everyone got their monies worth and felt it, and everyone seemed really in a great mood, even Mike Tyson seated about 25 feet behind me was having a festive time and enjoyed the action. Mike always has really appreciated boxing and fighters in the purist form and that is what we saw for about 4 hours at the Grand on Saturday. Let?s hope many more nights like that are ahead.
A teaser for next week?s column; a lot of people felt very strongly that Manny Pacquiao would defeat Erik Morales simply because of the way he dominated and stopped Marco Antonio Barrera in their fight, and couple that with the fact that Barrera had beaten Morales their 2nd and 3rd fights and many people feel Barrera actually should have been awarded the first fight as well and swept Morales. What people don’t sometimes get is the one of the oldest of all the many boxing axioms ?THAT STYLES MAKE FIGHT? and that?s our topic for next week?s column.
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James E. Smith (a.k.a. Smitty) has been a boxing commentator for various television companies for over a decade. He has done work for CSI Sports, Showtime, HBO/TVKO, Fox Sports, Event Sports, CKP Sports, Don King/Kingvision, TV 3 New Zealand, and many others. He is currently owner, co-producer, and host of “In This Corner,” America?s only syndicated half hour televised boxing show.
The views Smitty expresses are his own and may not necessarily reflect the views of Fightnews.com or its management.
