“THE GRAND FINALE!” FESTIVAL only at TigerBoxing.com
12 DAYS of coverage of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Erik Morales trilogy
ROUND 7
TigerBoxing celebrates 12 days of coverage of the thrilling trilogy between champions Manny Pacquiao and Erik Morales. Let’s flashback to the rematch, entitled THE BATTLE where Manny Pacquiao evened the score with Erik Morales scoring a thrilling TKO on January 21, 2006 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada?
Tired Morales Felled by Buzzsaw Pacquiao
Kieran Mulvaney
01/23/2006 – Las Vegas
[Originally published on January 23, 2006]
Kieran Mulvaney at Ringside
Perhaps, in the end, all those wars took their toll.
The constant parade of back-and-forth battles with the likes of Daniel Zaragoza, Wayne McCullough, Injin Chi, Carlos Hernandez, Jesus Chavez, and, of course, Marco Antonio Barrera and Manny Pacquiao: maybe, in the end, it all proved too much. Maybe Erik Morales could no longer go to the well, find the extra fuel to push him over the finish line.
Or maybe, just maybe, Manny Pacquiao is that good.
There were, after all, excuses, too, for Barrera when Pacquiao basically made him quit a little over two years ago: he was distracted by having to move training camp because of forest fires, and by the controversy over the revelation that he had a metal plate in his skull. And this time there will be, and reasonably so, the suggestion that Morales is no longer quite who he was, and that his third defeat in four fights is perhaps Exhibit A in that argument.
Nonetheless, Manny Pacquiao has now done what no other man has achieved before him, and defeated both Barrera and Morales, and done so by dropping and stopping both of them.
Although Saturday?s super featherweight rematch at the Thomas and Mack Arena in Las Vegas promised plenty of fireworks, there were some question marks about why it was taking place instead of, say, Pacquiao-Barrera II, or even Barrera-Morales IV. After all, despite some scary moments?not least when he surrendered the final round by fighting southpaw?Morales pretty much owned the first meeting between he two, at the MGM Grand last March.
But promoter Bob Arum admitted he stood to make more money for this rematch than either of the other two, and Pacquiao, too, had excuses for his showing last time out: promoter Murad Muhammad, according to the Pacman camp, effectively stole a chunk of Pacquiao?s purse, and booted him out of his suite at the MGM, which Muhammad commandeered for himself, leaving his fighter to share a one-bedroom room with eight other Filipinos. Muhammad, says Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach, also signed away his fighter?s right to choose the brand of gloves he wanted, obligating him to wear the softer Winning gloves instead of the less padded Reyes gloves he prefers. And then, in the fight, an accidental clash of heads, incorrectly adjudged to be a punch, opened a cut that caused him to lose a lot of blood, sapping him of energy and, as the blood seeped into his eye, vision.
Neither Pacquiao nor Roach could guarantee there wouldn?t be another head butt or more blood, of course. But with Reyes gloves on his fists, and Muhammad last seen on the other side of the country, at the bogus IBF featherweight battle in Foxwoods on Friday night, the mood in the camp was relaxed and confident, and the Filipino contingent boldly predicted victory. Last time around, said Roach, Morales had fought as well, and Pacquiao as poorly, as either was capable of doing, and still Pacman had lost by only two rounds on all three cards. And improved Pacquiao could only mean trouble for the Mexican warrior.
For four of the first five rounds, however it appeared that Morales might actually be even more dominant than the first time around. With the exception of the second, when a prototypical Pacman assault sent Morales reeling into the ropes?and which, because those ropes were briefly arguably the only thing holding him up, might legitimately have been scored 10-8?Morales was doing his best to slowly squeeze the life out of the hugely enthusiastic and partisan crowd. Advancing behind a stiff jab and powerful straight right hands, he repeatedly rocked and rattled Pacquiao, while his underrated defense repelled the Filipino?s one-dimensional attack. Pacquiao launched plenty of punches in bunches, but Morales deflected many of them and almost invariably seemed to come back with harder blows in return.
And yet, as with the first bout, its one-sided nature did not make it any less compelling. Each hard combination that landed from one fighter was met with a harder response, so that first the Mexican, and then the Filipino contingent in the arena had cause to raise the decibel level even higher than before. (The atmosphere was truly remarkable. The noise was so great that at times it felt like standing next to a jet engine).
Then, in round six, everything changed. Instead of charging in, straight head, as all too often is his wont, Pacquiao suddenly switched it up. He began showing angles, unloading a flurry, stepping to one side before Morales could set and counter, and then launching another combination.
All at once, Morales began looking discomfited, and then worse, covering up along the ropes. As Pacquiao attacked relentlessly, Erik stumbled to safety at the bell. The seventh and eighth rounds were close, but were clearly Pacquiao?s, as a suddenly weary Morales no longer had the strength to keep his adversary at bay with his jab. Nor, seemingly, could he mount the kind of defense required to avoid the swarming assault that was now crashing in wave after wave?and, most significantly, was being directed at his body as much as his legendarily iron jaw.
It was that body attack that sapped the last remaining iota of strength from the veteran warrior?s body, so much so that after a hard Pacquiao left sent him into the ropes, the man from Tijuana uncharacteristically closed the round by dancing away, at which the Filipino partisans in the crowd booed lustily.
Morales returned to the jab to open the tenth, and it seemed as if maybe the worst had past. But again Pacquiao drove him to the ropes, and another sustained, two-fisted assault proved too much.
Morales went down, as much from weariness as hurt, and when he collapsed to his knees again after Pacquiao resumed his attacked, referee Kenny Bayless waved the bout to a halt.
Between them, Barrera, Morales, and Pacquiao have staged a spectacular series of battles. And while a rubber match between Morales and Pacquiao might seem an obvious choice, the stage now also seems set for a rematch between Pacquiao and Barrera?although the man from Mexico City will have seen uncomfortable similarities between Saturday night and his own undressing a the Filipino?s fists, and may be reluctant to revisit those memories.
Manny Pacquiao may, indeed, simply be that good.
