For a fighter such as Erik Morales, motivation is everything. When he lost to Zahir Raheem last September it was one of those fights where he just couldn’t get interested. In with an opponent he thought he could blow out, Morales wasn’t in shape mentally or physically and the result was a lacklustre points defeat. Things will be different on 21 January when he meets Manny Pacquiao in their rematch at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. This time, Morales knows he had better be ready for a 12-round war. Rest assured, he will be.
The Morales we see against Pacquiao will not be the one who struggled against Raheem. Promoter Bob Arum knows this. So does everyone else in the fight game.
Morales was in a contrite frame of mind after the loss to Raheem. He apologised to Arum’s chief matchmaker, Bruce Trampler, who said there was a poignant moment when Morales asked: “Do you think Raheem’s a better fighter than me?”
Trampler assured him that no, he didn’t think that.
But what we have now is a Morales who seeks redemption, who accepts that he let down himself and people who had faith in him. This will make him very hard to beat when he steps into the ring with Pacquiao in a 12-rounder for the Filipino’s WBC International super featherweight title.
It is tempting to look ahead and the prospect of a match between the winner and Marco Antonio Barrera, but just because a fight is one that everyone wants to see doesn’t always mean the fight can be made. But, for now, we can look forward to seeing Morales-Pacquiao meet again in a fight that will get the new year off to a rousing start. Quite simply, this cannot fail to be exciting and should easily live up to Arum’s billing of “The Battle”.
The first fight was outstanding, Morales winning a close but unanimous decision in a war that would have been fight of the year in most years, though not in the same year as the incredible initial meeting between Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo.
Pacquiao was handicapped by a cut over the right eye that he suffered in the fifth round after a clash of heads, but he wiped blood from the eye and battled bravely. I thought Pacquiao might have been just starting to come on when the blood flowed. That round was, I thought, a real turning point. In a close fight, 115-113 in Morales’s favour across the board, one round is the difference between a loss and a draw.
Those close to Pacquiao say there were distractions involving his then promoter, Murad Muhammad, where the fighter wasn’t able to concentrate exclusively on the contest itself.
It upset Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer, that the Morales side had it written into the contract that Oriental-brand Winning gloves would be used in the fight; Roach preferred the Mexican-made Reyes “puncher’s” gloves.
Pacquiao’s new promoter, New Jersey’s Gary Shaw, has made a point of saying that this time all Manny will have to worry about is the fight itself with no worries about side issues such as gloves (Pacquiao gets his Reyes gloves this time) or the money matters that were swirling around the Filipino’s head last time.
But great fighters are usually able to fight through adverse circumstances and I would have to say that Morales was simply the better fighter that night, if barely. Freddie Roach, believes, though, that his man made basic tactical errors, straying from the strategy as he loaded up with big shots to the head, neglecting the body.
Certainly, after appearing to hurt the Mexican fighter to the body in the first round, Pacquiao punched almost exclusively to the head from round two onwards.
The chances are that we will see more body punches and perhaps greater consistency from Pacquiao this time. And one thing that does seem to have improved is that in his last fight, the sixth round hammering of Mexican journeyman Hector Velazquez, Pacquiao was using the right hand more, not just sticking out a pawing jab and looking to slam in the big lefts from his southpaw style. Indeed it was a right hook that started Velazquez’s crumble in the sixth.
There was a lot to like about Pacquiao in that fight. He was more of a two-handed boxer, he did some good banging to the body and there was a loose, relaxed look about him once he was in the flow of the fight.
The downside is that Pacquiao sometimes looked open for his opponent’s right hands, especially in the first round. I think it’s fair to say that defence has not always been his strong point.
Pacquiao is not one of those slick southpaws and Morales was able to land the right hand a lot in the last fight. The boxer from Tijuana stands about 2ins taller than the 5ft 6ins Pacquiao and he was able to use his height and score with the left jab as well as the straight right.
I still hear it said that the left jab isn’t effective against a southpaw but I have never subscribed to this theory. Henry Cooper and Howard Winstone were British champions who relied heavily on the left hand and both had great success with the jab against southpaw opponents, in Cooper’s case most notably in fights with the awkward Jack Bodell and Karl Mildenberger, while Winstone’s left hand gave Vicente Saldivar all sorts of trouble and he dominated less-celebrated southpaws such as domestic rivals Harry Carroll and Lenny “The Lion” Williams and the Japanese world title contender Mitsunori Seki with his trusty left.
Also, Juan Manuel Marquez was able to pile up points with the left jab against Pacquiao in their thrilling 12-round draw.
So I think we will see Morales using the jab and the right hand to good effect here as he seeks to establish control of the fight.
What worked for Morales last time can, quite simply, work again unless Pacquiao can do something to change it. The pell-mell rushes and the over-reliance on the big left will not get it done for Pacquiao, although I think he now realises this.
Pacquiao has the speed advantage and I would like to see him attacking from different angles, striking and moving out, constantly giving Morales something to think about while always keeping the fight at a high tempo. If he is right in front of Morales he is going to get hit too easily by counter punches and perhaps beaten to the punch, too, as Morales times the Filipino’s thrusts.
What we sometimes forget is that Morales is an expert technical boxer. The veteran of 51 fights (48 wins, 34 inside the distance) is sometimes wrongly thought of as just an in-your-face slugger, perhaps because of the give-and-take nature of the first of his three fights with Barrera. But when Morales stands off, moves and uses a more scientific approach he is very good at it.
Those who say that a good boxer invariably beats a good fighter could say the first Morales-Pacquiao fight proved their point.
A problem for Pacquiao last time was that he couldn’t win two rounds in a row, at least not on the judges’ cards. He would have a good round, then Morales would come back to regain the initiative. This is what old-time boxing types would call ring generalship: Morales had the ability to raise the level and depth of intensity of his fighting at key moments so that Pacquiao never at any stage was able to take a firm grip on the contest.
But that was then, this is now. Pacquiao will, I think, be better prepared technically and emotionally. The problem is that Morales, smarting over the slump against Raheem, will be resolute and rock-solid in his determination. He absolutely, positively does not want to lose this fight; the near apathy Morales showed against Raheem will be replaced by ferocity and ardour.
Pacquiao, though, will have learned from the first fight. He now knows, for instance, that Morales is not going to fall when he gets hit. (Last time, Freddie Roach has revealed, sycophants were telling Pacquiao that it would be an easy fight because he had stopped Barrera, and Barrera had won two out of three against Morales.) Now Pacquiao knows that Morales is going to be there for the long haul.
Last time, Pacquiao was viewed as the puncher, but although the Filipino can really crack (32 KOs in his record of 43 wins, three losses and two draws) I had the impression that Morales was landing the more significant shots — until the 12th, when Pacquiao seemed to hurt him. The big last round by Pacquiao narrowed the points gap after Morales had swept the 10th and 11th rounds on the scorecards.
But while Pacquiao may have hurt Morales he never looked like knocking him down. The Reyes gloves might make a difference, but Morales has always had a reliable chin.
Still, durable though Morales is, we should remember that the 29-year-old has been involved in a lot of long, hard fights. Pacquiao, the younger man by a couple of years, has a fresher look. But of the two Pacquiao is the more likely to get cut, or “bust up” in the harsh idiom of the fight game, having been seriously bloodied in fights with Nedal Hussein, Agapito Sanchez and of course with Morales.
Morales is considered the naturally bigger man, having turned professional as a super bantam while Pacquiao’s first bout was as a light-flyweight. But that was 11 years ago when Pacquiao was a slender 16-year-old. And just one pound separated the fighters in HBO’s day-of-fight weigh-in, when Morales was 140lbs to Pacquiao’s 139.
And so, the matter of intangibles and tactics addressed, we come to the tricky matter of who will win.
Last time I leaned towards Pacquiao and I will stick to my guns on this, not because of Morales’s form against Raheem, which I think was so misleading it can be thrown out of the window, but because I think the Filipino can improve on the performance of the first fight just enough to turn the tables. Tremendous fighter that Morales is, I nevertheless get the feeling that this time Pacquiao can be a little steadier, a little smarter, than in the first fight, perhaps showing a bit more variety, punching more with both hands, to pull out a very close, perhaps split, decision after another memorable 12 rounds.
