The year may be young, but the super-featherweight title bout between Erik Morales and Manny Pacquiao — two of boxing’s most fearless and offensive-minded fighters — has all the makings of Fight of the Year.
Should the fight go 12 rounds, with the boxers throwing about a thousand punches each and neither giving an inch, Saturday night’s battle for the vacant title will live on long after the crowd empties the MGM Grand’s Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
But the fight between Morales (47-2, 34 KOs), a three-time champion, and Pacquiao (39-2-2, 30 KOs), a two-time champion, has a lot more going for it than a potentially awesome display of heart not seen since … well, since five years ago when Morales fought the first of his three fights against his nemesis and fellow Mexican, Marco Antonio Barrera.
For one, there’s the likelihood of crowning a new superstar — a fighter who can draw huge pay-per-view revenue, and maybe even be recognized by people who don’t follow the sport — who happens to be Asian. Practically a living national treasure in the Philippines, Pacquiao, with his wide grin and ready-for-anything personality, has the sort of scruffy charm to win fans beyond those he already has. A dramatic fight with Morales, especially one that has been simmering in hype since the day it was announced, is the showcase he needs to be a crossover sensation.
Then there’s the question of whether Morales, who has never hid his emotions in the ring and can be drawn into a slugfest at the drop of a low blow, can add to his impressive career by vanquishing the man who took apart Barrera, who defeated Morales in Las Vegas last year in a bitter 12-round majority-decision fight.
In November 2003, Pacquiao devastated Barrera through 11 rounds, going toe-to-toe with him, punishing him with his greater power and hand speed till he rang up a TKO. The beating Pacquiao put on Barrera, who at the time was thought to be too tough to get pushed around, put the boxing world on notice that “Pac Man” was the real deal.
It made the top fighters in the 126-pound and 130-pound weight classes wonder if they stood a chance against him.
Since then, Pacquiao has plowed through opponents, knocking three of them out in early rounds and going the distance with IBF featherweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez last May in Las Vegas, in a blowout that was tamed into a draw. Pacquiao knocked down Marquez (43-2-1, 33 KOs) three times in the first round before Marquez gutted it out, surviving the fight on his boxing — as opposed to brawling — skills.
So for Morales to defeat Pacquiao on Saturday would be tantamount to declaring he’s not only the best super-featherweight out there, but still one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world. That clearly is what Morales is aiming for, trying to make up for last year’s loss to Barrera by taking on what’s easily one of the most dangerous fights of his career.
For Pacquiao to knock out Morales — which is about what it would take for him to win in Las Vegas, where Morales is thought to have home-field advantage — would create the tantalizing prospect of a new face in boxing and the large fan base that comes with that, something professional boxing is happy to oblige.
Of course, there’s something else boxing loves just as much: a fight that proves so exciting and evenly matched that it warrants a rematch, or two. Morales and Barrera already know that. Don’t think Pacquiao doesn’t know it, either.
